#guys is pokemon violet worth it

[prismit]

ok. i don't usually wear hats in pokemon. depending on the game i normally prefer to go hatless/hair accessories, or in s/v i used to just wear the lokix helmet (because there was that "stuck face" bug and i never bothered to take the helmet off even after it got patched because it looked cool).

but no one told me about the eelektross hat. i'm never taking it off and i also want it in real life. tpc please make it real 🥺

[banana-milk-enthusiast]

Pokemon Scarlet

[medea10]

Medea Played Pokemon Scarlet & Violet, The DLC's (Part II)

Okay, let's check out Blueberry Academy.

If you'll indulge me for a second...

BLUE HIS HOUSE

WITH A BLUE LITTLE WINDOW

AND A BLUE CORVETTE

AND EVERYTHING IS BLUE FOR HIM

I apologize for nothing. Moving away from the random musical interlude. This academy is a floating terarium in the Unova region.

And here's our first nod to the Black & White games. The girl with the pink hair is Lacey.

She came from this guy's penis.

Oh, there are more surprises this DLC has.

This rich-ass school has four places in this dome, the canyon, the coast, the savanna, and the polar. Many, many, many pokemon not in the original game are there. Yes, all the starters. There is however, a hefty price tag for that.

Aside from the vending machines at the rest areas, you are to pay with BP's (Blueberry Points). And you get that by doing Blueberry Picnics (BBQs). Unfortunately, the tasks are only worth like 100 or something cheap like that. And if you want ALL the starters, you have to have a grand total of 12,000 points. And so much more points if you want to decorate your club room, put music in it, print items, challenge the elite four, buy special items at the school cafeteria, get new features for selfies, learn new throwing styles, invite coaches like Larry, and catch legendaries.

Phew, that is a lot. My recommendation, host and/or join BBQs. If you're like me and are prone to playing solo, there are some Discord groups that offer a lot of opportunities. The group quests are something you'll need to get more legendaries. Moving on.

You will eventually meet up with Carmine. Her brother however...

Kieran becomes an angsty teenager who should just go back to his dorm room, put on some My Chemical Romance, and cry into his knock-off Ogerpon teal mask.

More importantly, Kieran is the champ of the school. Higher than the elite four. You know where this is going. You have to challenge the elite four and then Kieran.

That's when you're introduced to Drayton. And it better be obvious to you by looking at this kid. He's a slacker. He was the ex-champ. He's definitely a dragon-type trainer. But more importantly, he is the grandson to Unova gym leader Drayden.

And as you can tell, Carmine hates this guy's guts. Drayton will sucker you into challenging the elite four. There is pushback as you are merely an exchange student. But you do get the support of two members and Kieran just wants to defeat you. Yeah, we'll see how that turns out for you.

Okay, let's take on the E4. Please note that every single battle you do here are double battles. And give this game some credit, these are not easy battles. Not even the random trainers are.

Let's battle Amarys first. Just like the gyms in Paldea, you have to do certain tasks first before the battle. Amarys has you and Koraidon jump through hoops. Kinda like a Mario Party game.

I have my own theories about this girl as I think she's the product of Lenora and her white husband Hawes. But apparently, she's from Castelia City and Lenora is from a different town. So, that theory ends with me. Also, she's a steel-type trainer.

Next, let's battle Crispin.

He's a fire-type trainer. His first task is to make him a spicy sandwich. I have no theories of where this kid came from. The second I saw Crispin and his cooking attire and his pan...

And all I can think of is Kuga from Food Wars. They're both spicy boys who cook. And they're both in an elite group where they both are on the verge of getting kicked out.

Drayton's trial can be tricky if you're walking into this blindfolded. You have to face three trainers only using pokemon you caught in the Terarium. Raids in the terarium do not count. Traded pokemon technically caught in the terarium do not count. Once done, you can battle the dragon boy.

And as for Lacey...

Urp.

I'm resisting the urge to not bring up learning about Venonat's radar eyes from Tracey Sketchit in the second season. Oh wait, I still said it. You should know me by now.

Lacey's trial is a quiz with 5 questions. It's actually the easiest trial. As long as you know where she sleeps on Granbull and which is the true Sinistea.

Kid, I'm about ready to put you through a wall. Sigh. Let me just waste this wannabe punk.

You are going to battle Kieran. Much of the school and the E4 come out to watch you. And if you want to watch this boy suffer, put Ogerpon in your team.

So you defeat him.

Kieran pretty much has a mental breakdown and is beyond repair at this moment.

SELFIE TIME!!!

As much as I'd love to relish in this kid's agony, we have to move the story along. Because immediately after, Ms. Briar asks for you, Kieran, Carmine, and Drayton for help.

So all of us (minus Drayton because he's a lazy-fuck) are going to Area Zero. Briar was finally able to get permission from Geeta and Rika (who are there now). It's been a while since I saw Rika.

GAH! What did I do?!

Oh. I forgot about The Way Home arc already. When it's been a full year since playing, you tend to forget why you're being yelled at.

Geeta gives you the Indigo Disk (hence the name of this DLC). Has no idea what it is or why it is. But thinks you might have some use for it.

The Indigo Disk actually sends you to a lower level of Area Zero since it seems Professor Crazy Bitch's lab is locked down due to inactivity.

In the depths of Area Zero, you'll come across these special tera pokemon. They are stella-tera. And in the depthiest of depths, we will come across Terapagos.

Kieran decides he's going to use this opportunity to surpass you.

LADY, CONTROL YOUR STUDENT!

What am I, a judge in a Donald Trump trial?

More swipes at Trump. I thought I told you that we won't stop! I thought I told you that we won't stop!

Terapagos eventually emerges. But then...

This little shit catches it with a Master Ball. I'm impressed.

Kieran battles you with Terapagos. It fails. Then, Briar tells him to terastylize Terapagos.

Think of this as a Tera-raid from Hell. It puts up three barriers. Constantly takes away your ability to terastylize. And every now and then, it changes what type it is. All the while, Briar is having her wet-dream of seeing Terapagos in full form and Kieran is...

Yeah, this whole thing is a cluster-fuck. Time for you to end this nightmare and catch this fucker.

But wait, didn't Kieran catch it with a master ba...?

We good now? Okay. Let's take this behemoth down.

After finishing off Terapagos, you can then catch it, and 100% rate for this one. It better be after all the shit you go through.

Lady, Ms. Frizzle has more control than you do.

Well, that's the end of the main story to Indigo Disc. The pokemon is caught, the day is saved, we think Kieran is going back to normal, and the end credits play with a remix to Ed Sheeran's Celestial.

Okay, I think this is a perfect place to end my shit-post.

To be continued.

[kourabiedes]

I would love to hear more about Robin, specifically :3 Gimme deets, please!

Oh yeah I guess I should do that

In an out of universe sense, Robin is my particular brand of Juliana. I designed her to fit the experience I had with Scarlet... which basically involved me poking my nose into every. single. corner. of Paldea. She's a hiker, backpacker, and budding photographer, because all those things are what I spent the entirety of my playthrough doing. I think I got like forty hours in before I finally was convinced to stop fucking around and go for the non-Path of Legends badges. A lot of the DLC I did as wing-sister to @the-starkindler, who was playing Violet, and we developed a lengthy headcanon winding the two versions together using our respective characters -- you know, like an Emerald version. This bit is key because it means there are two bike-dragons running around Paldea and the Academy, instead of being represented by one fruit, is more of a basket of them. (Insert jokes here.)

I'm going to put a cut here, because I have a lot to say about my silly girl. Beware all who enter here, for there are OC headcanons afoot.

In-universe, Robin is an established student at the Naruva academy, in her second year, arriving sometime after the Team Star dust-up. She is Kalosian, from somewhere in the vague area of Anistar City (if you don't remember your Kalos locations, that's the place with the big red sundial). She's an introvert who grew up in a family of extroverts, and, as you can imagine, that need for a moment of peace fueled her early interest in backpacking. This got markedly worse when the little sisters started arriving. She has five younger sisters, all between the ages of eight and four at the time of her second year. For context, she's going on sixteen at that point.

(I love my little sister dearly, but she alone was almost enough to send me howling into the wilderness. Five of those? Yeah, Robin's a backpacking pro for a reason.)

At ten (because that's such a sane age to do this), Robin's mom nudged her out the door to do the traditional Kalos Gym circuit. Robin came home from that with a level 100 Espurr, several memory cards' worth of pictures of Kalos, and like, two badges. Her mom wasn't overly surprised.

This is kinda how Robin is. She doesn't want to be a powerful Trainer for the sake of being powerful. She makes herself strong so that she can easily do whatever it is she actually wants to do, which is See All The Things. She's not real worried about whether those Things are supposed to be Off-Limits or not, either. So, as you can imagine, she's fascinated by the stories of the mysterious and/or off-limits places of the world. Cerulean Cave. Mount Silver. Mirage Island. The Great Crater of Paldea.

So when her mom suggests Naruva Academy for her, well, she leaps at the chance. Mom figures hey, her kid may be a little odd, but she clearly has a way with Pokemon, and she's sharp, so send the kid to a good school and see what develops. Robin, on the other hand, is plotting her first Great Crater expedition within seconds of the conversation.

Does this mean she's in and out of the Great Crater a lot? Well, not really, though it's not for lack of trying. The Great Crater really is hard to get into without a flying Pokemon at the very least, and the strength of the wild Pokemon there is considerable. She never gets very far in before having to turn back for simple survival. Nevertheless, she's determined to see the bottom of it someday. (Also she does have to attend classes, which cuts into her exploring time severely. Gotta keep dem grades up or mom might pull her home! The grades net her a Tera Orb though, so hell yeah.)

One question that could be asked is, did she know the Paldea Pals before, since she's an established student? Well, yes and no. She knows of Arven, because the poor guy is utterly overshadowed at this point by his shitlord parents. She knows of Nemona -- there probably isn't anyone in the school who doesn't, to be utterly fair. She doesn't really have any opinion on either. They run in different circles, and the most she's interacted with either is whenever Nemona pounced on her looking for a battle. (Yes, she accepted. No, she never won!)

So how does she get pulled into the Scarlet story? Well, one weekend, while she was out chilling with her Pokemon in the wilds of Paldea, there was a really loud sonicboom overhead, and a few minutes later, a tired-looking red lizard Pokemon walked into her campsite. Like most people, she assumed he was a rare breed of Cyclizar at first, because who expects an ancient legendary Pokemon to just waltz into your life and ask for a sandwich? He's injured, but not badly, and she has the brilliant idea to take him back to the Academy with her and see if the teachers can help. She cuts her picnic short and does just that. No problem, right? Nothing life changing about that.

As you have no doubt guessed, the sonicboom was Miraidon fleeing the crater after being attacked by his nasty counterpart. Koraidon, in this melded universe, was brought over as well before <redacted>, and he and the Miraidon actually bonded and are buddies. When Mirai ran for his life, Kori tried to follow, but he's not as fast and had to land. (Miraidon has that jet butt, after all.)

From here, she gets enmeshed in the Scarlet and Violet storylines -- or, well, some of them anyway. The storylines are divided between her and Mirai's rider Alanna. They sort of swap between player one and player two frequently. Robin was involved the most with the DLC stories and Starfall Street. She was the one Ogerpon chose as a partner (maybe it was all that little sister experience!), and she ended up with Chien-Pao out of the four Treasures. (This is not quite as cool as it sounds. Pao just wants to PLAY. All the fuckin time.)

Let's see, what else. Oh, she has a massive crush on Perrin (unrequited), and though she starts out wanting to shove Carmine into the river, they bond over time and Robin kiiiinda thinks she's cute. (Does this count as Carmine x Juliana shipping? Probably not lmao)

Tl;dr, my Scarlet character is pretty fun.

[fictional-library-tournament]

Prelims round 1, poll 12

Propaganda

The Infinite Library, Worth the Candle series by Alexander Wales

Every time someone enters the Infinite Library, it regenerates, filling itself with every book that ever was or will be published in the outside world. Critically, the library is pulling these books from a future where no one currently in the library leaves the Infinite Library, so it can’t be used to perfectly predict the future… but it helps a lot.

The librarians of the Infinite Library, led by Head Librarian Raven Masters, analyse the books of the library in order to determine if there are any future world-ending threats that can be stopped or delayed.

Every time the library regenerates, the organisation system changes in a complex way, making it difficult to quickly find what you’re looking for.

Sterling Library, Yale, Alex Stern series by Leigh Bardugo:

In the second book, it is revealed to have been built as a portal to hell. Our main girl and her friend discover they have to run a gauntlet (set up by yale students from a long time ago) within the library, with different engravings serving as different steps, in order to retrieve their friend who has been cast down to hell

(compiler's note: the real library does not, afaik, have a portal to hell, hence its inclusion)

Merlin's Library, The Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne:

None

Meathead Public Library, How to Train Your Dragon series by Cressida Cowell:

It's a library! With information on dragons! And dragon guards! And the Hairy Scary Librarian!

Observatory Library, Violet Evergarden series by Kana Akatsuki and Akiko Takasi:

None

Geryon's Library, The Fall of the Readers series by Django Wexler:

Basically it's like a normal library at the beginning but as you go deeper you have prison books where magical creatures are held for the readers to kill when they enter the book by reading it (boo readers suck) because this lets them summon them like pokemon and also use some of their powers. Each library has a guardian which is a magical creature that made a deal to guard the libraries in exchange for their semi-freedom and Geryon's is this huge black cat called Ending.

Ending is suuuper manipulative but also kind of slays at times early on (except when she really doesn't) and has a bunch of kids that roam the library as regular cats including Ashes-falling-on-a-dying-world aka Ashes, the main character's best friend (who can talk)

Idk I love this series sm it rearranged part of my brain as a kid and felt like it should get a shoutout even though the libraries suck and are tools of a cruel and unjust system (not cool guys). Also the family/parental reveals with the main character go SO HARD you have GOT to believe me

[alexissara]

Art That Touched Me 2022

It's that time of year where people recap the stuff from the year they enjoyed and put them into structured lists. I like a nice structured list but instead of doing a bunch of categories of things I am just gonna talk about my favorite pieces of art across all forms of media this year and why I like them. Something being on this list doesn't mean they came out this year [but most did] I just have to have tried it out this year.

Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes

I love Fire Emblem, I make no secret about it, I see Fire Emblem and my dirty little consumer brain activates and the main theme plays in my little brain. It's probably my favorite series of games. However, I really also love the gameplay of the warriors series so this game was perfect for me. While the first FE warriors was a little mid thanks to a really bad story and a meh roster, this game is just amazing on every level. It expands on a cast of characters I love, gives Fire Emblem it's second canon lesbian character, the last one being on the Wii and it has two really amazing stories our of three. The game is held back by just how awful the Blue Lions are but that isn't anything new for the Three Houses world they also sucked in Three Houses. Edelgard and Claude's routes were both amazingly done and elevated the characters and their casts, fleshing them out even further and really showing their visions for a better world even if the game was still afraid to show you what this world would look like with it's subpar endings. The gameplay is great, the writing for characters is fantastic and really all it's missing is exploring more of Shez and Byleth both of whom needed a bit more spotlight in the game.

Ultimately I took a lot of great ways to write characters in compelling ways and a fun format for telling a war narrative in the context of a revolution. I think it's a really good and engaging piece of art that's also very fun to play.

The Executioner and Her Way Of Life

This anime was well worth the hype. The stunning action, the take down of isekai tropes, the lack of subtly, the wildly flamboyant and over the top cast, it is a stunning piece. The show is running at all engines fired and multiple easy ships and clear romantic feelings from several characters.

While this show opens with a guy character who is then killed the show after episode one then focuses pretty much wholly on women. This gives us a range of women in adversarial positions and allied positions. Everyone is a little bit messed up and it's just so much fun, it instantly became one of my all time favorite animes.

This instantly inspired me to want to write a setting for TSL and wanting to do more work with the isekai story telling space. I think this just makes me want to make something fun but that also like has more to say. Which is always my target goal but it was nice to see it in action in someone else's work.

Pokémon Legends Arceus

While Pokémon Scarlet and Violet really let me down [You can read my review here], PLA was an amazing experience. The gameplay was really exciting the flow of capturing Pokemon was just so much fun and the focused theming made for really great visual design. The game did a good job with the story telling through the way the village progressed. While there isn't a lot of deep depth there is something to say for a focused fun experience. I just really liked it.

I'm In Love With The Villainess

I haven't really gotten super far in this series I had a ton of fun with the first volume and some change I read. This is a classic example of me wanting to get deep in something but wanting to support the offical release so I am taking it pretty slow cuz money. I know this series has a trans woman character, has revolutions, has all sorts of shit I will really love.

So a lot of me really enjoying being engaged with it has been through fan art and covers and stuff. Still reading it was still just really nice and I really want to keep pushing forward with it and enjoy the relationship between Claire and Rey.

This series feels just so inspiring as a former comic book writer, like I love seeing a series with such clear good ethics and indie spirit get more and more experience. There is free translations of the light novels the creator just retweets and shares. She tries to communicate in tons of languages to her now global fan base and it's just really nice to see this little series that could grow. I feel really encourages to stick to my own ethics in my work and push for new amazing art to be as accessible as possible.

Guilty Gear -Strive-

This year I got a new laptop and with that I could finally get back into fighting games and the game that has given me the most joy from them all has been Strive. The amazing music that gets into the personal struggles of each of the characters, the over the top action, it's just an exciting and fun game. Bridget was what brought me to the game but I have no regrets diving into the series again after years since I last played XX Ancient Core on my PS2.

The game is also visually stunning, maybe the best looking game around. The stunning experience feels like you are in control of an anime fight.

I don't think I got a big take away from it as an artist that is like applicable to my current mediums but it does inspire me just listening to the music while writing to go big.

Los Espookys

Los Espookys is one of the funniest and queerest shows ever created. The cast of weirdos who like to make spooky stuff starts super grounded and grows increasingly ridiculous with each episode. This show really is something special and it is such a shame it got canceled by HBO.

While it's canceled there is there is two seasons of these little freaks trying to make spooks. I think the narrative of this little weird family is really fun and each character really brings something new to the table.

As a character focused writer I really love the focus on characters here and the way they make ridiculous characters feel like part of their world is masterful. I feel like I'll be pulling from this show when I am looking at how to capture my comedy forward characters especially.

Sun Haven

There is a billion farming sims and this is one that's stood out to me. Most farming sims in fantasy settings don't really embrace the fantasy elements for your farm but this game let's magic be a part of every aspect of what you do. This is a very cozy game and one that i am taking very slowly since I am playing it with one of my girlfriends. It's a really nice chill time that seems to be constantly improving in early access.

Harley Quinn

I don't think the sense of humor in Harley Quinn is for everyone, it's very over the top but not in the way like Los Espooky's is. There is more violence and swearing, it's more "adult comedy TM" except it feels a lot more masterful and less mean then most those kinds of shows. The narrative focus allows the show to actually weave it's comedy and have longer ends for punch lines and bits. It also makes it where it always feels like it's moving because the characters are not in the same place in any given episode, every episode matters to the plot.

I think this show also has some of the best versions of each character in the show with in all of DC media. I am not a big comic book girl anymore, I left them behind when I realized like the abuse and bigotry and stuff just wasn't going to end and I lost hope for the big two. That said I did used to be a super super engaged fan.

This show really makes me wish copyright wasn't the beast it is because it really shows the value of adaptation and how making a world made of these long term iconic characters can be an amazing narrative toolbox. Instead you have to get these ideas in front of gatekeepers.

Fire Emblem: Absolution

This is a Fire Emblem fan game and this is the one that really gripped me in a huge way. It showed me the potential these fan games have to tell stories that go beyond the series and show the strength of the community of fan game makers and rom hackers. The amount of awesome BIPOC characters and the anti colonial vibe of the first arc are really great.

This game really inspired me to dive deep into the fan community and start playing a ton more games. I might right later about a bunch of rom hacks I think are neat and why I think the community is so cool. I want to play even more before I do that but I feel like after diving in I really more than ever feel determined to make an SRPG be it a fan game or something original. It's not at the front of my goals but it's really inspired me.

Girl Haven and Cheer Up

I am bundling these two together because their graphic novels for kids. I really loved both of these stories Girl Haven and Cheer Up both star trans women as their lead characters and sapphic romance for those trans girl. Girl Haven is more a wonderous adventure with a grounding in reality like a queer Narnia that also isn't religious. Cheer Up is more a real mix of drama and romance that comes with being trans, queer, and not fitting norms.

These stories would have mattered so much to a younger me if I had read them. One of the main reasons it took me so long to come out is trans is that I was told on early internet that to be a trans woman you had to be attracted to men, you had to want XYZ things, be this fem, etc. I didn't feel like I could match these clearly homophobic standards and so I suppressed it despite believing that trans lesbians were valid that I met in these spaces from a rare time to time. I simply internalized it. Every trans woman in the media was attracted to men too, it was just not something I could accept about myself.

These stories I hope will find their hands to lots of queer trans girls and help them find the strength to come out. I just feel so happy they exist.

One Step From Eden

This is a game I've been meaning to play for a long time. I am a massive fan of the Mega Man Battle Network for it's really cool gameplay. This game brings it into a rouge like game with far less narrative. While I wish there was a lot more going on thanks to Steam Workshop support being in the game this is a game I just passively play whenever. It's just a really fun time, it's simple and it's like a go to passive almost like stiming type game.

Murder Princess

Our final addition is Murder Princess, an old small anime that I watched with April when I was on a trip to work on Falling Deeper and spend time with her. Watching it it was shockingly pretty gay and actually really good. I love it, I love this body swap anime, I love the weird characters, I love the like One Punch Man esc power level of our main fighter girl for most the show.

This thing really convinced me to sit with the potential of body swapping which is a kind of narrative tool I already liked. I wouldn't be shocked to see it in Falling Deeper and I have an old Firebrands hack about trans people body swapping I would love to revive.

[tagfer]

finally saved up enough to buy a switch. its arriving in a few days, but im poor so i cant afford a game yet 😅

do you have any free game recommendations

so what u do is you go to Tinder and you suck dick for money to purchase Kirby's Return To Dreamland Deluxe (releasing today!)

no but ye there's a few I can at least point you to. lately I've been playing Warframe (movement-based third person shooter) cuz a guy I kinda have a crush on reccomended it to me and it's incredibly fun. but there's also Pokemon UNITE (sporty pokemon moba) and Sky: Children Of The Light (calm 3D platformer MMO??), I've played both of those and enjoyed them immensely. I asked the group chat and Violet reminded me Rocket League (sporty driving) is now free, and Moonie mentioned Super Kirby Clash (team boss fights) and Paladins ("hero shooter") are also both free but also she reccomended the demos for Sea of Stars (RPG) and Hypnospace Outlaw (point and click adventure).

if you spend the $20 for online, you'll have access to NES/SNES/GB games, too. not EXACTLY free, but since I'm givin em $20 for an online service that can be pretty mid they can at least give me a good handful of free games too. Also, with the membership, you can also get Tetris 99 and Pac-Man 99. Worth note tho that some of the games i mentioned above don't necessarily need a NSO membership to play? At least I don't think Sky does. Warframe/Rocket League might not either but don't quote me on that.

Once you have money, there's plenty of cheap shit on there too tho like Stardew Valley ($15! and it goes on sale every now and then down to $10!) but also with BOTW2 coming out soon if you be sliding by used game stores you can probably find the OG for cheap now.

There's also a way to search for free things on the eShop so that might be worth a perusing too. hopefully this helps!

[hochi-mama-1997]

i wanna talk about my pokemon brilliant diamond team cuz its a little silly. (LONG ASS POST)

so im on the 8th gym, havent beat it, and my team is:

eggman. sweet poor eggman. currently a level 54 togetic. with the move set of baton pass, nasty plot, attract, and metronome. his strat is to make the girls fall in love with him, do an evil scheme, and then fuck around and find out. all else fails, run away.

kirby. level 47 jirachi. cuz i guess you get a jirachi in this game if you played sword or shield. i love them. with zen headbutt, life dew, dazzling gleam, and helping hand, i basically built them to work together with my star of the show pokemon in doubles, because i LOVE doubles. not online cuz im shy.

garchomp. level 69. got it from wondertrade and its just kinda here now. shadow claw, dragon claw, dig, and brick break, it does not set up and only attacks. i basically have no emotional attachment to her im sorry

soap. motherfucking soap. level 90 luxray. during the start of my save file, none of my pokemon would listen to me cuz i had the just great idea of using almost only trade pokemon. got angry and decided "FUCK YOU IM GOING TO CHEAT" and caught a level 5 shinx, put it into violet, and fed it exp candies until it was level.. i think 68? ive only given it more rare candy since then. its only ever leveled up ONCE in battle. right now its my last resort pokemon in the back of my party cuz i do like my game to be a little hard (as proven by eggman) he knows thunder, wild charge, volt switch, and strength. aka "might not work but worth it" "hurt yourself in the process" "attack then FUCK OFF" and "normal type move cuz ground types exist"

lucario. level 60 lucario. its from japan (or a game with the language set in japan, i guess?) and my best buddy. we're friends. i love him. i think hes from violet but he's here for some reason and awesome. he knows aura sphere, rock tomb, swords dance, and meteor mash. hes the guy kirby is with in doubles and the guy eggman runs away to. he's the star of the show. uh.. besides level 90 soap. also hes a master in cuteness contests so he's VERY talented.

dusky. level 48 dialga. just got here. still has base move set. but theyre here for one reason: my stupid ass luck. dusky got their name from the pokeball they were caught from. yup, a DUSK BALL. i dont have the exact stats but, i think.. dialga, a legendary, in a dusk ball, during the day? id say about a 5% chance. AND IT WORKED. i lost my shit when it happened. i think to myself, "this is why you've only gotten one shiny outside of community day fennekin and wonder traded hacked ones. because all your luck goes to bullshit like this." (and the fucking FIRST pokemon i battled on the port to coliseum being a SHINY KAKUNA. why.) might get off the team at some point.

honorable mentions who i booted from the team or something like that:

monferno i caught in legends arceus. left behind but was useful for gardenia and stuff.

razor the roserade. he's a champion from galar. just here cuz i wanted him to be.

bunbun the lopunny. shes also a champion from galar. i just didnt want them to be lonely cuz i never play that game.

R.K. (aka roaring knight) i never used him ever but he's a gallade and i just think hes cool and worth a shout out.

felon the empleon. my starter. i left him in the box because its the electric gym. might pick him back up for the elite four and replace dusky. unsure. move set of metal claw, surf, brine, and blizzard. cuz. yeah. no set up for him only damage.

machamp from china or a game with chinese, i guess. i got him from wondertrade as a machoke and i just think its neat.

ledian. poor ledian. i wanted it to work out. i wanted to pick faves over powerfulness like karen says. but no i cant. youre fucking pathetic ledian. im sorry. i love you.

ask questions if youre brave enough...

[bitchfitch]

like something that has really stood out to me about Scarlet/Violet is that there's so much more focus on making the characters People and not just pokemon NPCs.

Like, in most of these games, the characters are only about pokemon. Their entire life revolves around them in this same sorta generic way. They're all the same flavor in different packaging. Your rival always wants to be better than you or is single minded in their goals to be the pokemon champion for... Reasons? and your friend character is just sorta there. the gym leaders are a skill check that aren't usually worth thinking about beyond going 'ah neat design' with basically no life to them. the Villain bosses are just Bad Guys tm with very little like, exploration or motivation.

You feel like the only human in most of these games. There might be one or two characters who work but most of them are just. Hollow.

But not Scarlet and Violet. Actual work is put into giving the characters Something outside of just being pokemon NPCs. The gyms all convey something about the leaders more than just what type they use, the leaders themselves are more than just 1 note personalities. Your rival has Fire and drive and she actually Works to achieve her goals and it never feels like she's just There to fill Blue's shoes and get beat up on. The friend character has like an actual plot you can work to further, he's not just there to smile passively and offer vague encouragements.

The Villains are kinda cringe in that they feel like they were written as a anti bullying PSA first, but they aren't Generic. They're the sort of kids who Would get picked on to hell and back in highschool, and they don't make a lot of sense but it still Works and you want to see these guys do better and start being able to feel safe and comfortable returning to school after being ostracized.

I think the game Letting the characters care about things outside of Pokemon has been one of the best ideas Gamefreak has had in ages. it makes them all feel so much more Real and it makes me Want to interact with this world and solve the problems it's presenting to me.

I think the game being open world really forced Gamefreak to Actually loop the story in with mechanical advancement. There's not that stop go rhythm where the plot just pauses for an hour while you try to beat a gym to get the Necessary tm. The story moves as you do and adapts to you because Gamefreak can't put a cut scene trigger in the middle of a path and garuntee it actually gets hit at an appropriate time they had to find a way to actually tie the story into you interacting with the gyms and titans and team star bases because those were the only things they could feasibly track.

Like... I haven't enjoyed a Pokemon game since sun/moon, and i played that zooted on pain killers and haven't been able to have fun with it since. I thought I'd just grown out of the series, but this game has actually been Fun.

[thedeliverygod]

Bright Spots of 2022

This kind of reads more like a Thanksgiving post since it’s kind of the things I’m grateful for in 2022 but lol I didn’t think of it till now so oops. But anyway I know the last few years have been pretty shitty for most of us so I wanted to highlight a few things that were good this year on a personal level.

Going to my first convention since the pandemic started. It was hot af and uncomfortable wearing a mask, I won’t lie. Not to mention I was out of shape cuz I haven’t done much in the past 2 years. but with plenty of breaks and water, it was worth it to have the magic of being in a con center with a bunch of nerds again.

Getting into Stray Kids. They’re such a talented group and just so fun and I can’t say enough about them. My favorite bands beforehand were pretty much Evanescence and Yellowcard; Yellowcard has (sort of?) disbanded, put out their final album but they recently did a show together again at a festival and announced another one lol. So maybe there’s hope for more of their content in the future? And Evanescence put out new music in 2021 which was only a year ago but it feels like it’s been forever for some reason lol. But even so, I haven’t been this excited about music/a band since high school and it’s really refreshing. Stray Kids everywhere all around the world!

As much as I miss being able to see her easily, my best friend moving to another state to get out of a crappy home situation. Of course she still has struggles in her new place but she definitely seems to be on a better path in general.

Spy x Family’s anime was a wholesome and comedic addition to my life that I dearly needed. I’m always a simp for found family stories. 

Tenjin Chat. we’re not always active but you guys are the best and I love having you in my life so much. 

Going to the beach and finally getting to swim in both the ocean and a pool for the first time in years. I was with my sister, my nieces, and mom so there was some drama naturally but god I’ve missed the water. 

Pokemon Legends Arceus mainly was the video game highlight of my year but Pokemon Violet was also fun. If they can take the things from both games that made them great, I can’t wait for the future of pokemon. 

Speaking of games, Cupid Parasite was also a blessing. Hilarious and sweet. Can’t wait to play more otomes in the future. 

Noragami fandom events; I always love interacting with everyone and seeing the creations especially since the main content itself is just #pain right now lol. 

Celebrating the 20th anniversary of Kingdom Hearts with you all. I still can’t believe that it (and I) are this old lmao. But I loved how everyone dipped into their memories and made beautiful art of all kinds for the celebration. 

Lastly, the Kingdom Hearts IV trailer. Because holy shit, KH4 is real and the hype cannot be matched. 

[frauleinandry]

just finished pokemon violet... MASSIVE end game spoilers under the cut - seriously, the end of this game is worth going into blind if that’s still possible for you

hot DAMN i did not think the area zero/turo’s lab storyline was going to be that emotional. like, turo set up some massive red flags from the beginning, and the second clavell got confirmed as being a good guy, I knew he was going to be the final villain, but once the area zero stuff started, I thought he’d just been sealed in the lab the whole time, and wanted the main character to free him so he could go on a murder rampage with his future pokemon. then, once I got to research lab 4, I thought he’d been usurped by his evil AI version, but nope! he’s literally been dead!! for two years!! in a pokemon game!!

like, I do think the franchise has touched on some dark/deep stuff before, while still very much wearing kiddie gloves (side eyes sun/moon), but I did NOT think they’d just. fucking kill one of the main NPC’s dad. and then to make things worse, the AI wasn’t the villain!! seriously, poor arven - this guy a) almost has his dog die, b) finds out his estranged father is dead and has been for yonks, c) finds out his father was low key kinda evil (not surprising) and has almost doomed paldea to be overthrown by evil robots (definitely surprising), and then d) the robot clone of his father finally tells him he’s proud of him, but then has to leave forever!! 

like, up until that point, the saddest stuff had been arven trying to cure his sick dog, and all of team star refusing to give up until penny resurfaces - both of those emotional beats hit strong, but they’re still ultimately very sanitised, very safe narratives compared to that.

overall, I thought violet had the bare bones of a good game, let down by its numerous technical difficulties, lack of level scaling (seriously, that was a killer), and obviously rushed development time. as a result, something that could have been really good, just felt mediocre half of the time. still, when it did hit, it hit hard.

(also, the area zero theme is a banger)

[torchiiko]

awright guys u know WHAT. im gonna try to aim to make my silly long videos even if its not super viable for growth

i think i have some interesting ideas & it might be worth it to try them & do them a little badly out of passion than to wait to be successful enough to do them better if that makes ssense??

i at least wanna try my pokemon violet idea & i figured out a little setup i can stream with using my 2nd monitor as usual so . i hope you guys will bear with me on this !!!

im also considering streaming more randomly? ill still do the fridays at 6 but it might be nice to be able to do some streams without a strict schedule, especially for video ideas where i need to make a lot of progress quickly ,,

ALL THAT BEING SAID. tmrw id like to stream pokemon violet but my pokemon choose their own moves :)

im thinking abt additional rules to make the challenge a little harder, like only being able to catch X amount of pokemon per area so i cant just catch a ton of pokemon whenever their movesets stop being in my favor. i have to be strategic! work with what im given! i hope itll be as fun for ppl to watch as it sounds for me to do

[pokepupkin]

what things are you currently interested in?

pokemon (we just recently (last year) got into it so we’ve only played sword and violet but using an emulator to play diamond and whatever else we decide to eventually download)

legend of zelda (same for pokemon, only played totk and botw but also working on a ton of others like minish cap, majoras mask, ocarina of time, and links awakening). but we are pros at it we fight lynels and gleeoks and gloom spawn for fun

recently finished phoenix wright ace attorney!!! need to get back into it because we stopped after turnabout goodbyes to mentally recover

danganronpa as well! played all 3 main games but the ultimate beach day or whatever (i think it was danganronpa decadence?) has horrendous sprites and we wont touch it with a ten foot pole. also i stand by the fact the new spike chunsoft game (master detective archives) sucks. and we spent 4 months waiting for it to come out. not worth the 64 dollars dont play it

aside from games, aye-ayes are our current favorite theyre just so silly little guys AND theres a pokemon based off them!!!!!!

[skeptical-bear]

September 2023 Shiny Pokemon Log

I got back into shiny hunting this month. I have caught 9 shinies this month and 1 more at the end of last month. That's a new record for me :)

I got mostly bug types which was unplanned lol.

I only played Legends Arceus (LA) and Violet this month. I'm going to go over it all in order found. Open if you want to read more!

First, I'm going to answer the question

Which Pokemon Should I Use?

In LA, I just chuck pokeballs at the little guys until they are caught, so there is no strategy there LOL.

My trusty partner for Violet has been Breloom. Named after Sister Minnie, the internet cat that will unsubscribe you. Breloom will destroy all of your pokemon. With false swipe and spore, she can easily get anything to its highest catch rate. Max EVs in HP and Attack (+ 6 in Speed) allow her to be bulky and much more powerful than most wild pokemon. She is holding a poison orb to activated her ability poison heal. The constant healing keeps her alive almost indefinitely with no effort on my part. She is the only pokemon in my party 90% of the time.

Also I love Breloom in general. Look at that hat! So cute!

Gallade 8/27/23

I was stuck at home and sick in august so I started casually looking for shinies in LA to have something to do. I didn't have a target for this and I wandered around all the maps aimlessly. After a while I Ended up in Alabaster Icelands during a Massive Mass Outbreak. This guy spawned after a Kirlia outbreak ended. Despite not being the full 1/4096 odds, It was my first hunted shiny in this game so I like Moose a lot!

At that point, I had not done any research on how to shiny hunt full odds in this game. Now that I know more about the game, I think that on my save file it is impossible to get full odds on every pokemon at this point. I don't think that I will start a new save to make it full odds huntable, just because it sounds like too much of a hassle for such a casual game. If you want to make your file of LA full odds compatible, check out this video from Absolblogspokemon:

Applin 9/10/23

So A few days before this, I started a hunt for Rellor. I then had the idea from a youtube short to catch a shiny applin before the Teal Mask DLC launched so I can immediately have a shiny Dipplin. I dropped everything to go to Tagtree Thicket. I made a sandwich with level 2 Dragon encounter and would just reset after 30 minutes when the sandwich ran out. After a day, I found Candy! When the DLC dropped, the first thing I did was find the Syrupy Apple item and evolved her. I was so happy with this Dipplin shiny, so worth it!

Buneary & Kricketot 9/11/23

After doing some research on hunting in LA, I went back to play before the Teal Mask DLC released. I wanted to catch an alpha shiny of some kind.

After only a few laps around the Obsidian Fieldlands, I see Buneary. satisfied with finding a shiny so fast, I finished up my lap around the map and get Kricketot too! I was amazed that I got 2 in a single run. I still wanted a shiny alpha, so that concluded phases 1 and 2.

I also saw this cat stuck in a tree

Combee & Shinx 9/11/23

After wandering around all day, I figured out that I wanted to target Alpha Heracross. I stopped searching the entire map and only ran over to the Heracross and then would leave the map to respawn the pokemon. I only realized I should do this near the end of my third phase, where after 2 trips, I get a female shiny Combee!! So cool! 2 trips after that find, I get Shinx as the first pokemon seen on that trip! It was an exciting 20 minutes lol

and yes, this is what my Shinx is named after

Munchlax 9/14/23

Yes, this is the gift Munchlax from beating the hard mode of Ogre Oustin. Yes, I am counting it to show off I beat the hard mode of Ogre Outing. It was so annoying until I learned that there are people online that also wanted to play LOL. Then it was pretty easy to win, I think it was my second or third match. I do not like that minigame, but I guess I need to play it more if I want the mochis.

Heracross 9/17/23

After getting the Kitakami national dex to get the tera shard charm, I was bored with the DLC, which sucked because I wanted it to be interesting. While looking for something to do, I saw a Heracross outbreak on the edge of the town in Kitakami. I knew that would be a super fast hunt and jumped at it. And it was! It was full odds too, so I didn't KO any pokemon in the outbreak, I just entered and exited the town to despawn and respawn the pokemon. While I still don't have an alpha shiny Heracross, Pepto Bismal here is pretty cool too.

Spidops 9/23/23

Paintball was completely random lol. I realized that despite having done everything else in the main game, I forgot about the sealed pokemon. While running around the map pullling stakes, I spotted this guy and was like, "That's a weird Spidops...OH!" It's pretty interesting looking so I can't complain lol.

Rellor 9/24/23

After starting and forgetting about this hunt, I returned to the desert and found shiny Rellor. I also learned that I'm terrible at making sandwiches. Trying to make a bug Encounter Level 3 sandwich is the worst! The cherry tomatoes are not your friend!

The ingredients are:

6 cherry tomato

3 Potato Salad

3 Curry Powder

1 Bitter Herba Mystica

This makes a sandwich with bug encounter level 3, Title power Bug Level 3, Item Drop Steel Level 3.

To test out sandwiches, I used this simulator!

I started off by using level 2 encounter sandwiches, but then changed my mind. It took an hour to get the level 3 sandwich right. I was about to give up and stick to the level 2 sandwiches until my partner said they wanted to try making the sandwich. They made it 2nd try! I was so jealous lol. Then I found the Rellor 5 minutes into the sandwich so that was lucky. I looked for Larvesta until the sandwich was over, but didn't get any other shinies, booo.

Conclusion

This was a good shiny month for me! It was really fun hunting in Violet, despite the horrible lag. The lag was almost unplayable at times and kinda made me sick at some points. That makes the game hard to play, but the fast phases make it worth it. I think I will start a hunt in the older games next month. I am going to buy a charger for my DS Lite so I might start a dream team quest in Emerald or Black 2. We will see! I still need to get alpha Heracross too. Rumble Weekend is next week, so I will post about that when It happens! I have never participated in that before so it should be fun!

Thanks for reading! I don't think anyone will ever see this post, but I wanted to start making blog posts like a diary for my games and other media like books. I want to treat the media I interact with as more than something I'll forget about in 2 weeks. I feel like I'm stuck in a cycle of sleep, work, eat, repeat. These posts will be a reminder that I am having at least a little fun every now and then. So yeah, hi future me, enjoy yourself!

Bye for now!

[gorematchala]

With a little distance from the release of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, I feel like I can give a fair review without honeymooning it too much. My review of Pokémon Violet is that Breath of the Wild ruined video games.

My real objective stance on the game is that obviously it needed more time, but for what it is, the first run through the game is a very enjoyable experience. All the character and story stuff is really great, and this generation of Pokémon is honestly one of my favorites, and part of that is because their stats are all off the goop fucking insane. (except Spidops)

But my issue now is in the postgame. To be clear, everyone has been saying pokemon has no postgame since XY. This is a common whiny baby complaint from people who dont play other games. To date I have played 520 hours of Pokémon Shield, and almost 200 hours of PLA simply because I enjoy playing those games and hanging out with my little guys. This time around is a little different though.

The issue here is a problem with open world games that I've talked about in previous posts. Open world games are so gigantic that they cannot be curated the way a linear game can be. PLA escaped the open world curse by having multiple Monster Hunter Rise sized maps that feel like they were built more deliberately, and stay fresh for longer cuz when you get sick of one you can just move to another. There are 5 of them total. There's one big Paldea. So whats the issue with one big map vs a few little ones? Well the Paldea map is very impressive for its scale, and I do like it a lot, but the problem with big maps is that theres almost always nothing in them. They become so large that the only thing to do in them is see everything. So once you've seen everything there's nothing left to do. Pokémon held my attention for longer just by having Pokémon in the big map to find, but now that I've found them all traversing the map is tedious. And part of that is that Miraidon doesnt feel as good to control as the Noble Pokémon from PLA.

So with no map to explore, no items to find, no pokemon to track down, youre left with a few options. The Ace tournament, shiny hunting, or raids.

The Ace tournament is not difficult and it takes too long to be worth the money because you cant turn animations off. But the money would just be used to train Pokémon that I would only really need for raiding. Which we'll get to.

Shiny hunting requires too much attention because of the lack of a visual or sound effect. As a result it can be a little stressful, where in PLA I've found like actually 20 shinies in the past month, and half of them appeared behind me. I only knew they were there cuz they kept sparkling at me until I heard them. The more realistic lighting (coupled with lighting bugs) also makes telling certain shinies apart even more difficult. The other day I thought I saw a shiny Lumineon but it ended up just being the sunset turning it yellowish. And example of how games with art styles, again like PLA, are always better. The textured models of the Pokémon look really really good, but just adding scale textures and stuff in PLA and Snap was good enough as well.

So then you're left with raids. I actually like the active time raid idea, but much like my stance on open world games being inherently worse than less open world games, I think that FFXIII is the only game that ever had good ATB, and thats because in that game you can cancel the bar to use moves early. Youre not beholden to the flow of time. But its fine the raids are fun, EXCEPT, people are so unbelievably unfathomably incompetent that the raids are actually incompletable most of the time. People will bring Azumarill, or Iron Hands, or Sylveon to every single raid no matter what type the boss is. I had a group join me for a water Tera type Toxapex, a water POISON type, and our team consisted of me, two Azumarills, and a Sylveon. I went through 4 groups of people before doing it alone with computers and beating it. And thats how every single encounter has played out. But it takes so much longer solo that it isn't worth doing. This is an entire mechanic of the game that I expected to keep me playing which has now actively stopped me from playing because people online are so bad at video games.

But I wouldn't be relying on raids for content if the game didn't have to be Pokémon of the Wild. Just like I'd still be playing Elden Ring if it wasnt Breath of the Souls, and Sonic Frontiers couldve maybe focused on its plot and animations more if it didnt need to be Breath of the Sonic.

So in conclusion Pokémon Violet is a very good game that I will never replay. I'm excited for DLC to come and add more Pokémon because I do like the game and I love my Skeledirge and my Slither Wing, but I think I'm gonna mostly just keep playing PLA whenever I have a hankering for Pokémon in the future. I think for an open world game this is one of the best I've played, but I also really hope BotW2 bombs so we can get normal games out of Nintendo and Sega again

[dzamie]

^ archive link above (doesn't show up in notes)

Fun fact! There is basically nothing about the actual plot of the game, aside from "there's an evil goblin or something." I can only assume this is because video game journalists are still illiterate.

anyway here's some highlights below the cut:

Right in line with most Harry Potter tales before it, Legacy’s plot has more holes than a fishnet stocking and sorta just expects you to accept that

"let's be honest nobody's seeing HP stuff for the story anymore"

If you’re like me, you’ll roll your eyes during moments when you’re introduced to 100 years’ worth of dead characters lecturing you from paintings about the importance of some stuff that happened a long time ago and how you have to save the world or whatever. But once that’s over with Legacy mostly redeems itself with a fantastic cast of non-painting characters that help boil things down into a not-too-convoluted good-guys-versus-bad-guys conflict

"At first, it might seem like there's almost some worldbuilding here. Luckily, that quickly gives way to the standard black-and-white morality one might expect from the series that straight-up said that a quarter of the population is just irredeemably evil."

The elephant in the room with Hogwarts Legacy is Harry Potter’s creator, J.K. Rowling ... Regardless, IGN has always and will continue to champion human rights causes As critics, our job is to answer the question of whether or not we find Hogwarts Legacy to be fun to play and why; whether it’s ethical to play is a separate but still very important question.

"It's not our job to decide which games should get reviews on our site! That's why you can easily find reviews for every single copycat shovelware game on the Android market, I'm sure."

That immersion can occasionally be broken by Legacy’s dicey performance, though, which suffered from just about every issue that makes IGN’s performance review team cry during my time playing on PlayStation 5. Those greatest hits include framerate inconsistency, weird issues where the lighting switches from too dark to too bright, aggressive pop-in while moving around the map quickly, and more.

"Rowling's game aspires to the exact same technical valleys as Pokemon Scarlet and Violet."

There’s even this weird thing where every door in Hogwarts has a brief loading screen.

"And fans of Sonic the Hedgehog: 2006 will love this returning feature!"

Beyond the performance issues, Legacy is also a fairly glitchy adventure in general. You’ll probably fall through the map a time or two, or see a character or object get caught in the environment, or maybe even have the person you’re talking to just up and walk away from you in the middle of a conversation, leaving you to speak with the empty spot they were standing in for about two minutes.

"This game performs like many other AAA studio titles from established properties that can just coast by on brand recognition and not much else."

There’s a lot more to it than shooting balls of light out of a stick! Instead, the trick is in dodging and countering enemy attacks while pulling off creative combos. For example, you can pull enemies towards you with Accio, light them on fire with the close-range Incendio, then blow them away with the explosive Bombarda spell.

"We've come a long way from *checks notes* Galaga. Legacy offers a combat system only seen before in Final Fantasy, League of Legends, Genshin Impact, Guild Wars 2, Transistor, Ikenfell, and other games released 3+ years ago! But also probably a little worse this time around. But I recognize the spell names, woo-hoo!"

You’ll also be forced to change up your tactics regularly, since many enemies have color-coded shields that can only be broken by spells of a particular type.

"Featuring everyone's favorite way to encourage diverse playstyles: invulnerability via boring-ass shield!"

...okay, that's enough of that gimmick

you spend an enormous amount of your time fighting dark wizards, spiders, and goblins. Every once in a while they’ll trot out the same repeated troll enemy or nondescript magical suit of armor as well, but the enemies Legacy throws at you wear thin pretty quick.

the game for people who thought that Super Mario Bros (1985) had too many enemies to keep track of

the one part of combat that’s a bit of a drag is the somewhat clunky process for switching between [spells]

it's literally Genshin Impact But Worse

You could spend hours ... catching, grooming, and breeding all manner of fantastic beasts

weird, I thought Rowling was against grooming

The lore reason for a lack of [Quidditch] is that it’s been banned for one year ... but that feels like an effort to paper over the absence of a major aspect of Harry Potter’s time at Hogwarts that the developers must’ve just not had time to include.

imagine forgetting to include something that's been in the HP games since the Game Boy Color. It's like making a Pokemon game without the ability to breed them.

a major pain in the cockatrice

I just wanted to highlight this turn of phrase. Did they throw a dart at a wall of mythological creatures? Were we two inches away from reading "pain in the sphinx" or perhaps "pain in the ouroboros?" I can safely say that this was not an AI-written article because only humans can choose words this poorly.

It’s certainly weighed down by technical issues, a lackluster main story, and some poor enemy variety, but even those couldn’t come close to breaking its enchanting spell over me. 9/10

"Sure it's boring, repetitive, looks like shit, and has no Quidditch, but my character said 'Incendio' and that is literally all I care about. Nearly perfect."

[x]