#i’ll try to get some more screenshots tm

[hdmiports]

anyone got any thoughts on what could be making my sims’ lips have these weird gaps? this is a cc preset but it happens even with the base game ones and seems to only happen w my fem frame sims.

[darkx-the-dragon-kn1ght]

Chapter 8- Part 16

Jumping across the platforms isn’t really much, it’s pretty straightforward, and now we’re in another open area! There’s a doorway to a new area over there, plus a guy- what does he have to say?

…Do I even need to say it?

Light Screen all you want, little one, but it can’t save you from Bug Bite gaming!!

Not sure, but probably somewhere with not as much parkour. But now- let me click on your items and see if there’s anything-

Nice. Okay, now we can head upstairs to what I’m guessing is 2F?

Alright, still no ladies with long blue hair anywhere…but there is a sign. Maybe that’ll give us a clue?

A roof? Oh wait- wasn’t there another Light Shard on top of a roof, that first one I saw (before I knew what its purpose was)? If we go down here, are we gonna come out onto that space, that rooftop? In that case, and if there’s a healing spot, Amaria might be in that direction…but I don’t want to go there just yet! I want to explore a little more!

So let’s go left, towards those platforms, and- oh, encounter!

Ah, we can find Mankey around here! Hmm…I know there’s a possible implication that a gang of Scraggy/Scrafty live around here, and so we might get a chance to catch one of the former, but I don’t know if I’m correct in guessing that. Plus, getting a proper Fighting-type now, even if we don’t use it right away…not bad!

So let’s start with Prong, lower its HP a bit, then switch into Glare…

And with Glare(TM), we paralyze it-

And throw a Poké Ball for the finisher!

Brawler seems like a good name for him, being an angry punchy guy and all.

Anyways, we hop across these platforms- it’s a little more involved this time, the placement is a bit cheeky so you’ve really gotta pay attention if there’s a specific place you’re trying to jump onto. But regardless, we make it and find this area!

Yeah, I’ll always take stuff like that!

Mmm- yeah, that might be another way to the roof, so we’re still not going up there yet! We’re going back around! Man, this place is bigger than I was expecting…

Okay, um- again, didn’t get to screenshot this, but…in the middle of this little room here, there was a box, yeah? But then the box just…moved, and went down that hall to the lower left? 

And I didn’t pursue it, because- well, I left the Obsidia Slums and went to the Pokémon Center again, this time to get a screenshot of the PC Box for the ending stuff (spoiler alert, this chapter’s about to come to an end), then I came back here so I can save and just start here the next time I play, and…

The box?? Is back now?? I don’t know what happened- if the box moving earlier was part of some event thing, then did me leaving and coming back…break it somehow? Glitch, bug, whatever you wanna call it? If that’s the case, then uh…welp! Guess I’m not getting whatever would have come out of following the box, RIP me.

So yeah- as I alluded to, I’m ending the chapter here! I was initially hoping I’d be able to end it once Xera and Victoria found and met Amaria and all that, but I didn’t realize how expansive the Obsidia Slums were going to be, so that didn’t work out. We’ll just have to take care of that next time, in addition to obtaining the TMX and possibly making our way into Obsidia Park!

Happy (belated) New Year everyone, I hope this was good of a gift as anything, and I’ll see you all in the next chapter!

CURRENT TEAM:

Riptide

Species: Croconaw

Gender: Male

Level: 20

Ability: Sheer Force*

Item: Quick Claw

Brave nature; Alert to sounds.

Breeze

Species: Pidgeotto

Gender: Female

Level: 20

Ability: Keen Eye

Item: None

Lax nature; Mischievous.

Glare

Species: Ekans

Gender: Female

Level: 20

Ability: Intimidate

Item: None

Naughty nature; Highly curious.

Whiskers

Species: Skitty

Gender: Female

Level: 20

Ability: Wonder Skin*

Item: None

Lax nature; Capable of taking hits.

Bloom

Species: Roselia

Gender: Male

Level: 21

Ability: Leaf Guard*

Item: Rose Incense

Docile nature; Alert to sounds.

Prong

Species: Charjabug

Gender: Female

Level: 20

Ability: Battery

Item: None

Rash nature; Loves to eat.

CURRENT BOXES:

NUMBER OF RELOADS: 5

Previous

Next

Back to index

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

Welcome! Before you go...

Welcome to my main blog! No matter how you got here, sit down, rest for a bit, and get to know the blog and the person behind it.

This is @notyouraveragejulie. My name is actually not Julie; it’s Savannah (and my pronouns are she/her). In addition to being an incredibly clever and completely true witticism (technically, I am not your average Julie because my name isn’t Julie, although whether or not I am average is...debatable), I picked this username as a nod to the inherent badassery of Julie d’Aubigny. Long story short, she was a late 17th- and early 18th-century bisexual opera star, master duellist, constant troublemaker, completely self-confident all-around badass. If you want to know more about her, read this or watch this.

This blog is my little slice of life and the world.

Some of the things I am, in no particular order:

a full-time “strange dreamer” (a reference to Verdi’s Don Carlo, specifically the line “O strano sognator!” in the Filippo/Rodrigo duet from Act II)

here, queer, and proud (though it may take me time to come out fully)

neurodivergent! (#actuallyautistic, also likely has undiagnosed ADHD and some sensory processing issues)

a giant arts and humanities nerd

an aspiring writer (a lot of academic writing/analysis even outside of school because I’m That Nerd, but I also write creatively—mostly poetry although it’s mostly bad)

a humongous opera nerd (and I particularly scream a lot about 19th and early 20th century French and Italian opera)

a work-in-progress polyglot (native English speaker, officially studying French [having previously studied several other languages—most notably Latin for seven years], unofficially studying Dutch and German, and will add more someday)

a would-be world traveler (I’ve only been abroad once but with any luck that will change sooner rather than later)

a musician and actress (I can play violin and viola, as well as piano very badly, and I sing)

an avid reader (although I will admit that a lot of it nowadays is online)

a hobby photographer

a food and style experimenter trying to find what I like best for me

a budding activist always trying to learn more about the issues affecting people today

a young person who LOVES getting messages and asks—don’t hesitate to bombard my inbox; I’ll try to answer ASAP

a lover of all the weird, random, amazing things life and the Internet have to offer

a Taurus sun, Pisces moon, and Leo rising

and apparently a Legal Adult TM.

I am also involved in two other blogs:

@opera-simplified, which I run alone, and

@opera-shitpost, which I co-run with my amazing friends @dichterfuerstin and @rayatii (although I don’t post on there as often as either of them).

other things:

the header quote is a quote from Act II of Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites that translates to “for we are going to fight, each one of us in our own way”, which @smile-at-the-stars recommended (indirectly) for use as a header and which I think is a great quote; it’s about how we’re all human and we’re all existing together in this world and ultimately we should be kind and compassionate and respectful of each other because we’re all dealing with shit and we all have different gifts and experiences,

the header picture is a screenshot of Betsy Norden and Maria Ewing as Constance and Blanche respectively in the finale of the Met 1987 production of Dialogues des Carmélites (specifically the moment when Blanche rejoins Constance and their Sisters of Compiègne in martyrdom),

the first quote in the description is from the final movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection) that translates to “O believe: You were not born in vain! You have not lived nor suffered in vain!”

the second quote is an Albert Einstein quote.

uhhhhhhhhhh here’s where you can read my opera fics I guess

lastly, you’ve gotten this far, but before we proceed, please do not follow me if you are any of the following:

racist

sexist

homophobic

transphobic (including TERFs/FARTs)

biphobic

aphobic

panphobic

NB-phobic

queerphobic

ableist

a Nazi or a member of any hate group

a fascist in general

antisemitic

Islamophobic

fatphobic/bodyshaming in general

a white supremacist

a Trump supporter

a pedophile/M.A.P/P.E.A.R.

antivax

anti-choice/pro-forced birth

anti-common sense gun control

or any other kind of discriminatory/awful.

If none of the above applies to you, then I just have one rule: please be kind to each other. also to me would be nice. let everyone express themselves freely and safely on here. not everyone has the space to do so in real life. let them do it here.

Alright, everyone, enjoy! Have a great time!

With love,

Savannah

[radramblog]

Pokemon Quartz

I have a confession to make.

I fucking love Pokemon Quartz.

Okay, context. Pokemon Quartz is an infamous Romhack of Pokemon Ruby, finished in 2006 by a young Spanish developer going by Baro. It was possibly the first completed romhack that completely replaced the entire set of the available 386 Pokemon with a set of newly designed Fakemon, and while lots of the replacements are pretty obvious analogues, there are some pretty interesting designs and the sheer effort required to do this solo as a teenager is something to behold.

(Look at Lileep, it’s a dodo now! I think its cute.)

The hack shows it age pretty well these days, with the sheer development made in GBA hacking especially in the last couple of years obviously showing it up- obviously something like Clover or Radical Red is going to make Quartz look ancient, and limitations in available tools are pretty obvious if you know where to look. The game’s region, Corna, is blatantly just Hoenn with some modified route themes, and its pretty clear that the designs for each Pokemon are limited to the replaced mon’s colour palette (as with Torido above).

(The map is kinda pretty though imo)

Quartz is infamous for a few reasons ultimately linked to the developer’s youth. For one, the dialogue tends to be a mix of poor English and weird humour and plenty of cursing, along with some jokes that don’t really fly these days. (To Baro’s credit, the writing and English does get better as the hack progresses.) The plot is utterly nonsensical as a result of shoehorning the Electric themed Band Ambar as villains into vanilla Ruby’s story, and involving the very 00s teenage idea of CHAOS vs ORDER and the pseudophilosophical musings that go along with it. Also like some of the designs are extremely ugly, to be frank. Lots of people are aware of Babos, the Skitty replacement, but that’s only really scratching the surface- the Llamayama line (aka Numel) and Berchi line (Clamperl) are pretty awful if you ask me.

(ew)

(…sis you are literally standing in a centre)

(hey can we take this from a 10 down to like a 6 or so)

I first encountered Pokemon Quartz as part of a bootleg multi-game cartridge picked up in my time living in Kuala Lumpur. The version of the hack on that cart was either very early or just broken, since none of the doors in Golden Island or the nearby Broke Cave (Dewford Island/Granite Cave) would actually let me in and therefore I couldn’t progress especially far. (I understand there was another broken ROM running around the internet that just had legendaries and Master Balls running around the first few routes, for some reason,). My trying to find a walkthrough or a fix led me to one Let’s Play of the hack by Zorak, which I suspect considering his association with fellow early LPer Chorocojo is the reason a fair few people are aware of Quartz at all. While I absolutely wouldn’t recommend reading that LP these days- its very late 00s, enjoys a certain R-word way too much, and to his credit Zorak has a comment on the archive stating that he considers it “immature and severely unfunny!”, but it was the only way for me to consume the remainder of the game at the time, having not figured out emulators at that point. I could go on for a long time about those early Lets Plays, but I’ll save that for another day.

(Oh also I’m ganking a bunch of the screenshots from that LP since my file is in endgame, cheers mate)

Okay but why do I like this game then? Well, aside from tickling my nostalgia bone something fierce, there’s a lot of cool things in the hack that make it stand out. While the lore behind the main legendary Pokemon is pretty bad and some of their designs are godawful, the Braille puzzles from Ruby have been converted into an entire original runic alphabet and is expanded to be present in the encounter events for Kaomare and Karendi (Kyogre and Jirachi). I had a lot of fun translating all of the script by hand, even if the actual text is a bit edgy. Speaking of Karendi, the game has a very JRPG style item chain sidequest to get to the encounter, which is pretty fun and something that to my recollection hasn’t been seen since. It has some little ideas in the dex that took Game Freak years to try, such as an evolving legendary (Ordkip->Tanord, replacing Latias and Latios) and the hack’s replacement for the Kanto starters having a 4th evolution (replacing the legendary beasts in the dex). The player is actually offered a second starter from the trio replacing the Johto starters late in the game at Muddy Island (Pacifidlog), which while a bit useless at that point is still something that took GF until X and Y to try. (Emerald doesn’t count imo)

(I’d translate the Cornan, but I lost my notes. Find the key yourself, cowards)

I can’t really explain beyond that why I love Quartz so much, but it’s the type of attachment that doesn’t really make sense and can’t really be explained. With that in mind, please believe me when I say never play Pokemon Quartz.

Most of the Pokemon are reskins of the original mon without changing the stats or learnset, and some of the ones that are make zero sense (As an example, the Water starter gets Aeroblast of all things, but only if you overlevel it in the second stage). The 3rd Gym leader’s ace, an overleveled Groundoe (Sandslash), has 4 ground moves, so any Flying type beats it outright, except 2 of those moves are Earthquake and Fissure, so if you don’t have a bird you are S.O.L. . The 4thleader has an absurdly overpowered ace in the form of Freech, one of the few mons to be completely overhauled, being the Milotic equivalent except its Dragon/Ice with overpowering STAB moves and Speed Boost. Basically, the game balance is completely out of whack.

Instead give a look into Pokemon Ultra Quartz (I refuse to type Let’s go Blobbos more than once). Released in 2018 by the developers for the excellent if also problematic Clover, UQ fixes just about every issue with the game’s balance, expands the encounter tables to include many of the Quartz mons that were implemented but unobtainable, and re-enables missing features such as the Battle Tower, while leaving most of the rest of the Quartz experience untouched- in this sense, I’d argue it’s the superior Quartz experience. It does still have issues- the labyrinthine route and cave design is untouched, Blobbos is here but is pretty pointless, and TM availability is as shitty as Quartz (which is the same as vanilla Ruby, but still). It does also add a few events of varying quality- Blobbos is as adorable as ever if a little pointless, the endgame developer battles are neat and decent grinding, and the postgame dungeon added is pretty sick even if the secret boss is… unique? The direct 1:1 import of the Deadly Seven from the infamous Pokemon Snakewood is both unnecessary and obnoxious, so try to keep in mind its origin when suffering through that forced segment of the game.

(My final team- Dotori, Psimouse, Rubygon, Mazalon, Oceadino, Kaosune. Or, Flying/Fighting completely overhauled Cradily, Serene Grace Gardevoir, Split evolution Vibrava, Ghost/Steel Banette, Water/Flying Swampert, and Fire/Dragon Groudon.)

It’s a good game despite this, ok? Give it a shot, experience some Romhack history but not quite as shit as it was in ’06.

Wait shit I forgot to mention how Baro put his name everywh-

[secretmellowblog]

Do it. Live-blog bbc les mis so I can live vicariously through you bc im never going to watch it. (Please)

fSDFSDFS thank you I would totally liveblog it but idk if I have the Energy(tm). I’ll definitely be making some Posts tho. I’ll call it my “bbc les mis liveblog kinda”

Plus if I paused to give my opinion any time I had a Thought(tm) I’d spend all night writing 20000 page long posts and it would take me 3 days to get through an episode lolllllllllll. I have a bunch of screenshots from episode 1 saved to my computer that I’m gonna use in Essay Posts(tm) later on

I feel like I’ll probably post more about BBC Les Mis after I make it to the end, and I have a more complete picture of where they were going with the changes they made and what they were trying to do. I’m actually okay with adaptations Changing Things, as long as the changes are made with good reason/purpose/intent, and (to be really charitable) it’s too early for me to tell where they’re going with most of the changes.

also i did love the Pontmercy stuff in Episode 1. i would die for baby marius

[beware-monstercat-phantom]

Rationale for why some people have issue with Tokyo Machine (Polish) using Japanese Culture for Branding

We’ll start off by saying that Tokyo Machine = Eryk Kowalczyk = Xilent, for people who are not aware.

Xilent’s social media features Eryk as himself (he is white and Polish) and his alias was established in 2009 and now has 20.3k followers on Twitter.

Tokyo Machine features Eryk obscuring his face with goggles and a mask. This has led to people assuming that the person behind a music alias that is heavily inspired by Japanese culture (e.g. making songs titled “moshi” [a greeting in Japanese] and “saikou” [roughly translated from Japanese as meaning “highest”]; having an animal mascot crew with names ending in “-chan”). This alias emerged around 2015 and notably has deals with providing music to games such as Rocket League.

For proof that Tokyo Machine is Eryk, there are screenshots and links from Shazam and ASCAP.

https://www.shazam.com/track/352244945/crazy

https://www.ascap.com/repertory#ace/search/workID/894083125

There has been discussion on Twitter about why people have an issue with this, since many people of non-Asian descent have been inspired by Japanese culture in the past. A common thread that people have pointed out is that because Monstercat actively removes comments/posts of people mentioning that Tokyo Machine is Xilent on platforms where they have the power to do that, and because Eryk hides his face and hair (which obscured his ethnicity as a side effect), people are uncomfortable of a white man having success with a brand centered around Asian culture where the logical assumption if you don’t know who they are is that they’re an Asian person.

I will quote from some Tweets that we have seen of this discussion.

I just find it laughable that a white person found success by making his entire artist alias about Japanese culture (which made me and others assume he was Asian), but Asian people find that they have to whiten their names on resumes to get job opportunities

Harvard study about it: https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes-get-more-interviews

Not to mention that I'm realizing that I find it uncomfortable that someone can "Asianify" themselves to make money, but Asian people don't get to stop being Asian at the end of a workday. With the stuff in the USA about the "China virus", I worry about racially motivated attacks

Cause I doubt if racists after 9/11 didn't know the difference betweet a Sikh and Muslim person, they're not going to know the difference between a Japanese and Chinese person.

yeah, i doubt xilent is doing it intentionally out of malice 

white artists like these may have good intentions, but they end up receiving more success/recognition than members of groups that influenced them because they're disproportionately favored by the industry 

Pretty much this. Also on a social scale, Asian people don't get to be Asian whenever they feel like it. I know in acting, we keep getting typecast and that sucks.

it could be argued that the usage of japanese culture is respectful, but the project misleads people to think that the person behind it is japanese 

Yeah I thought he was Japanese. I mean the guy puts on a mask, googles, and a wig, and everything is Japanese related so that's an easy assumption to make. Although I remember people trying to compare skin colours to see if he was Asian and that was something 

Asian culture also has some toxic aspects if you're born into it so while not every Asian person feels this way, I honestly don't feel comfortable knowing that a white person got successful off of putting on a mask, goggles, and a wig and being all like "moshi moshi, kawaii"

Just unfollowed Tokyo Machine. I knew he was Xilent but I had no idea he was trying to pull a Rachel Dolezal. It makes me sick that Monstercat was helping him do this. 

I just spent a while trying to explain how problematic it is that Asian people in the West have felt pressure to whiten their names to get job interviews, but a white person can base an entire music alias around Japanese culture and be more successful than their previous alias

It hurts cause I don't get to stop being Asian when I feel like it. When I process photos of myself, I try to "unyellow" my skin. (Relevant reading - https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/read-crazy-rich-asians-director-s-letter-coldplay-yellow-1135826)

I'm also concerned about all this "China virus" talk because if racists can confuse Sikhs for Muslims, they can confuse all of Asia for each other.

Also I don't really get as bothered by being influenced by Japanese culture (e.g. Puppet who is on the same label) as much as putting on a wig, mask, and goggles and then having the label go to the extent of using automoderator to remove any post/comment with "Xilent" in it

Why are they letting everyone make the reasonable assumption that the person behind a Japanese centered alias is Japanese and hiding that the person is Polish if it isn't a big deal to them?

I know that DotEXE became Summer Was Fun and no one hid that...not sure what the need was to suppress talk of TM = Xilent.

I'll just leave the imgur album here with a lot of removals of people bringing it up - https://imgur.com/a/v5VXnu5

For ease of access, screenshots of removals of the comments/posts of people talking about Tokyo Machine being Xilent will be posted here. Source links are in the imgur post.

Another comment on r/EDM where people were also discussing this. One commenter pointed out that the ASCAP database was eventually updated to remove mention of Eryk being Tokyo Machine, except from “party”. (https://www.reddit.com/r/EDM/comments/b9iz9b/list_of_reasons_why_i_think_xilent_is_tokyo/f1cx54o/?context=8&depth=9)

What we can take away from this that it would have been less harmful for Monstercat and Tokyo Machine to have been more forthcoming with who the artist was behind the alias instead of actively hiding it. 

Japanese culture is becoming more popularized in the West, but misleading people, whether intentional or accidental, to believe you are of a visible minority when you are not and crafting a persona out of someone else’s culture that you wear for a few hours to make money off of performing is hurtful to the people who don’t have the option to take off a wig, mask, and goggles and go back to being white.

[vaguely-concerned]

Some Alec Ryder Meta

So since I couldn’t find the screenshots of Alec Ryder’s dying ‘thoughts’, I went and got them myself!* And I am uh way closer to crying than I thought I would be, Alec sort of surprised me here. Let’s go! 

I was NOT prepared for his literal first thought to be of his children. And notice -- this is not his children being impressive or special or idk ordered/obedient. It’s them being happy and safe and playing and chaotic. I uh did not expect this, frankly.

I’m guessing this is where they used to live when the kids were small! (Would this be before or during their time on the Citadel? The timeline there is so hazy to me haha, I can never quite remember how that works)

Baby Scott on the swing ;______; I wonder if Alec is ‘there’ off screen in this scene, pushing him, since we start off with a shot looking over Scott’s shoulder like that 

Can I just say how quietly charmed I am by the fact that in Alec’s memories Ellen isn’t captured when she was ~*young and beautiful*~ or whatever nonsense -- she’s a mature woman, the same age as himself. It feels like there is something sweet and telling in that, like they were partners/equals in his mind. (This also makes me very uncomfortable to think he didn’t ask her/didn’t get her consent at the last moment on her death bed to put her in stasis, after the twins left the room at least; he seems to have respected her so much, if he went against her wishes that’s... such a breach of everything she seems to have meant to him and really should have been addressed more because it would essentially be his big sin as a character. So I choose to believe for now that when the kids left he did one last ‘give it this one last shot and I promise that if I find nothing within a certain time I’ll let you go and grieve like a normal fucking person’ sales pitch, possibly with prepared Science to back him up because they were both kind of weird like that and I think that if anything could have worked that would. ‘But think of the scientific implications tho babe wouldn’t you want to be able to find out how worked?’ ‘...You’ve got me there’)

More confirmation that Ellen had probably come to terms with her death and Alec Really Hadn’t lol. (Ellen might have just been grateful she lost neither of her children to the eezo exposure, actually -- she would have understood intimately how phenomenally lucky they were that both the twins survived and were healthy to boot) If I were to hazard a guess I’d say that Alec probably was in pretty bad need of space therapy even before his wife got ill, she was just his emotional support and he was intelligent and driven enough to hide most of it until that stability came under threat

:( this is upsetting. It doesn’t come across as well without the movement but he’s bowing his head and putting his face in his hands. Either Ellen when she’s really sick or when she uh ‘died’ 

I’m fairly sure that’s Ellen’s eyes -- and crucially they’re opening again. 

Mom and the twins :’) I think it’s pretty clear Alec did that thing some people (especially men) do where they sort of organize all their feelings through their partner -- “Your mother would have been proud of you, of both of you” JESUS CHRIST ALEC JUST TELL YOUR CHILDREN YOU’RE PROUD OF THEM LIKE YOU ACTUALLY MEANT TO SAY, THEY ALREADY KNOW THEIR MOM LOVED THEM FOR GOD’S SAKE YOU ARE THE UNCERTAIN ELEMENT HERE

ETA: actually this might also have something to do with how convinced he seems to be that the kids don’t need him -- that his love and attention and regard doesn’t matter or count, or would even be seen as an imposition (he consistently refers to himself pretty self-deprecatingly in connection to them, their ‘old man’ coming in and messing up their lives, like he considers his absence to probably be the best he can do for them? He certainly devalues his own impact massively, positive or negative). Meanwhile Ellen’s place in all their lives is a clear and uncontested positive so maybe that’s why he goes for her pride and her love like that. Again: who the fuck raised this weird dysfunctional man to be like this and how did he get away with it for so long haha

Alec and adult/at least teenaged twins! a) I suspect going to another galaxy with them to explore might honestly have been his idea of how bonding works, which... well and b) Sara is right behind him, leaning in like she’s listening and interested in what he’s saying and maybe even speaking too, and Scott looks to me like he’s sort of stranded on the side, looking in but not quite able to connect the same way. (This might be coloured by what I know about their respective relationships from the rest of the game, granted)

The same memory as before BUT interestingly --

the camera is turning around, like Alec is trying to get a look at his children’s faces and can’t :) this is fine and not at all illustrative of his entire deal *everything in my heart is on fire*

sOME observations: 

- These flashes give you more emotional insight in him than all the unlockable memories put together, and you’ll literally never see most of them unless you’re a freak like me, painstakingly frame by framing your way through it. That... seems like a waste?? 

- Despite his numerous flaws and shortcomings as a parent and as a person, literally every single thought he has at the end is about his family -- and not only his wife, all of them. There’s no place for his work here at all. That doesn’t absolve him of anything, of course, but it makes me sad that he never found a better way to show it, or to emotionally connect with his children, which he seems to have a real wish to. (”Maybe six hundred years can change a man”) Bioware... Bioware sequel pls don’t leave it like this ;_________;

- He himself does not figure prominently in his memories, and when he does he is faceless and vague -- except for when he is completely alone with his grief and Ellen is gone. I think there is something to be said about the fact that he makes all these huge inspiring speeches about the unknown and exploration... and yet his actual motivation is so firmly rooted in this immense fear of the unknown and of himself, of not knowing who to be without his wife, of not knowing how to go on living, of being alone. I wonder to what degree he knows this himself. (From what I’ve read so far of Mass Effect Initiation he certainly isn’t as idealistic about the whole thing as even the game portrays him, where he’s show to be pretty clear-eyed about the Initiative already -- or maybe he sort of is an idealist, under the fear and the jaded exhaustion. Either he genuinely believes Andromeda will hold answers and that science can achieve the impossible or he’s just too scared to consider any other outcome. Oh Boy tm)

- Ellen’s illness is such a cataclysmic event for him that I really have to assume he was never that stable to begin with. And as we’ve seen: When a Ryder goes off the rails they do so in STYLE and drag thousands of people with them to an uncertain fate haha

- My personal headcanon is that Alec used to be a better dad before Ellen got ill and when the kids were still very young; when all they really needed was to be held and loved and made to feel safe, and then became more and more distant as his work with SAM progressed and the children’s emotional needs grew more complex and demanding. Sara remembers this part of their father better (or clings to it more desperately, depending on your point of view) and is also more like him in general, being driven, competitive and intensely intellectually engaged (no matter how you play her in-game, Sara is always presented as vastly more A Nerd than Scott is -- its own can of worms of course but it’s there in the text). Meanwhile Scott has reached a resigned sort of ‘It’s perfectly plausible my dad would not be able to pick me out from a crowd’ place about it and given up on expecting anything more a long time ago in self defense. I think they’ve both hit on different parts of the truth there lol

(Also Sara and Alec seem to have bonded over making fun of Scott a little bit and considering him the underachiever of the two and like Not Cool guys!!! :( ) 

- Anyway Alec Ryder is a very interesting and immensely flawed character and killing him off and never meaningfully engaging with him again seems like throwing away a golden opportunity. Sequel where ‘Ghost Riders’ takes on a new meaning when??? I just want the twins to be able to either yell at him or connect to him better, as appropriate to the feelings of the individual player (I totally get why people would want to give their Ryders a chance to straight up hate him)

I think where it really hurts for me is that he clearly has these feelings, the capacity for it. There’s a wealth of affection and... tenderness? reverence, nearly? in these memories. None of his outward hardass needs-everything-to-be-under-control persona. And yet he could find no way to express this or even really meaningfully stay with his own feelings and his children suffered for it. It’s just all so fucking sad

*Courtesy of DanaDuchy’s youtube channel, which is truly one of the marvels of the internet; please check it out if you have any interest at all in Bioware games or indeed RPGs/games in general, there’s SO much content and it’s all neatly organized! If like me you want to listen to all the banter of every game... this channel’s got you covered

[findmeintheafterglow]

A Guide to Every Single Newsie

There are way too many of those punks. If you’re new to all this come learn whom is who

Let’s start with some pictures, they’re blurry because it’s surprisingly hard to get a decent screenshot. There are lots of them but hopefully just seeing their faces a few times will help you. Recognizing them just comes with time trust me, I used to struggle to find Race and now I see a pic of someone's feet and am like “ah yes Finch my boy”. Also, I’m only covering the newsies live cast because that’s what you can legally watch and what most people are familiar with. Also, I didn’t want to do every cast member to ever be on Broadway or tour.

Please note some of the things I’m about to say may not be canon but are part of what I know is widely considered true within the fandom. As far as sexuality I may mention it with some characters/who they’re commonly shipped with just so y’all aren’t lost when you see fics and things.

Jack: You know Jack so I’m not going that deep into his character. He’s 17, full name Francis Sullivan, newsie nickname is Cowboy. He’s the leader of the newsies of Lower Manhattan. A charismatic asshole who really just wants meaningful relationships and happiness for those he loves. Undeniably bisexual. Played by Jeremy Jordan.

Davey: Full name is David Jacobs, newsie nickname is Walking Mouth though he’s only addressed by his nickname in the 1992 movie. The most educated, attended school until he was around 17 ish. He’s a doofy little nerd and also mom friend ultimate, I repeat bc this is a defining trait Mom Friend Ultimate. I’m not sure if this is canon but pretty much everyone recognizes that he and his family are Jewish. Played by Ben Fankhauser.

Les: Sassy angel child. Full name Lesley Jacobs. Albert calls him shortstop a few times but it’s not quite a newsie name tm. 10 years old(almost). Also pretty Jewish. He’s kind of an impressionable little firecracker, he looks up to all the newsies but especially Jack. He just has a lot of energy and wants to hang with the big kids. Sass master in training. Buckets of charm packed into about 4 feet of human. Played by Ethan Steiner.

Crutchie: Crutchie! You know him! You’ve already fallen madly in love with him! Lost use of one of his legs to polio. Last name is Morris for sure and a lot of people say his real name is Charlie. Jack’s closest friend. He’s often painted as a pure sunshine boy, he is a pure sunshine boy. However, he is also tough, streetsmart and ready to fight. Very kindhearted and eternally optimistic. Played by Andrew Keenan-Bolger(you may see it abbreviated as AKB).

Race: This boy has lots of names so strap in. Racetrack Higgins is his name, people mostly call him Race not Racetrack. He is also sometimes called Racer. I don’t think this is canon but as a fandom, I think we’ve determined that he’s aggressively Italian and his real first name is Antonio, you may also see Anthony or Tony. Best friends with Albert. Crutchie is Jack’s best friend but Race is sort of Jack’s second in command. Sprace, him and Spot Conlon, are pretty much the biggest ship in Newsies. He’s a gambler and has an affinity for betting on horse races. He sells by the Sheepshead Racetrack hence his nickname. Very easy to recognize because he always has a cigar. The definition of a disaster gay. He has good intentions most of the time but is also a chaotic piece of shit. Played by Ben Tyler Cook(BTC).

Albert: Albert DaSilva is his name, having fantastic hair is his game. Race’s best friend. Personality is similar to Race but a little less chaotic, like he still does dumb things all the time but isn’t nearly as loud. Prankmaster and Sassmaster ultimate. Lives on the lower east side with his dad and two older brothers but generally that fact is ignored and he’s lumped in as living in the lodgings.  His cap is on backwards most of the time which can help you recognize him. Played by Sky Flaherty.

Spot: Spot Conlon, the man, the myth, the legend. Leader of Brooklyn. Comically short but will also soak you without hesitation. Side note bc I didn’t know this for a long time: the newsies call beating someone up “soakin’ ‘em” because you beat them up so bad they’re soaked in blood. Back to Spot, he’s tough as nails but also cares about his boys in Brooklyn a lot. Played by Tommy Bracco.

Elmer: A smart yet small boy. Very good at math and science and somewhat interested in politics. He has 8 older siblings. Polish apparently? I learned this very recently?? A very friendly and sunshiney guy. The newsies make fun of him saying that he’s bad at selling papes. He’s a hardworker. This is definitely not canon but you may see his last name as being Kasprzak. This comes from Evan Kasprzak, the actor who played Elmer in the Papermill and Original Broadway Casts. People like writing about Elmer so they just kinda gave him that last name and it works. Played by Anthony Zas.

Jojo: Jorgelino Josephino De La Guerra where to begin. A good Catholic boy. He was raised by nuns in a cathedral in Harlem. A nice boy, a kind boy. Down for some shenanigans but is generally reasonable and doesn’t want anyone to get hurt. Very ambitious and wants to be a big baller(in KONY he wishes for a solid gold watch I mean). Played by Joshua Burrage.

Buttons: Benjamin Buttons Davenport, what a guy. So I don’t know that he’s actually younger but he definitely reads as a little more youthful. He’s optimistic and easily excitable and overall kinda has this genuine hope and happiness that some of the other guys have lost to the street. He lives with his family and has at least a few siblings but I feel like he has hella. Not gonna be last in line for the tub tonight. Played by Chaz Wolcott.

Romeo: Will flirt with anything that moves. He has very distinctive bright red and blue striped socks if that helps you identify him. Is one of the younger newsies but makes up for it with overconfidence. Very lighthearted, we never see him get too serious. A charmer through and through. Still a very kind and caring guy. Played by Nico DeJesus.

Specs: Specs is a good one. He wears glasses obviously so you can identify him pretty easy. Definitely on the older end of the newsies. There’s no basis for this in canon but I feel like he’s been around longer than Jack. Kind of helps lead and run things with Race and Jack because he’s the most responsible motherfucker in that lodging house. Think kinda like Davy where he’s a bit of a mom but more easygoing, less cautious and more one of the boys. Generally a happy guy and so so sweet. Very forward thinking and genuinely likes selling papes. Played by Jordan Samuels.

Finch: Finch! A personal favorite please show him love. Full name is Patrick Cortes. He has a family(or at least a mom) but ran away when he was little. He carries a slingshot with him a good amount of the time so use that to find him. He’s sarcastic, funny, and always rarin’ to go. Tough but not in an “I’ll fight you” way. He will fight you if needed but it’s more like “Life’s a bitch but look how far I’ve made it”. Kinda like a cool older brother vibe but throw in a good handful of antsy. Played by my main man Iain Young.

Sniper: Mkay it’s time for the tough boi trio, these next three are fighters. Last name is Wah. His dad is named Sam Wah and owns a laundromat above Jacobi’s Deli. You may see him as a girl in fics or hcs because for almost all of the tour he was played by a woman. Boy has aim like no other. He is confirmed to be the quickest and strongest of the newsies. Also sly and cunning. Boy’s like a snake or a fox or whatever simile you prefer but regardless be scared. Has a reputation so people don’t mess with him. Would never hurt another Manhattan boy, he’s scary but he defends his brothers. Played by Daniel Switzer.

Tommy Boy: Don’t know a ton about Tommy Boy but here we go. He’s a man of few words, when he talks his answers are brief and to the point. Not in a mean way though that’s just how he is. Appears to be confrontational as he’s consistently seen stepping to a fight(before the world will know when Jack says “keep your shirt on” and when he scabs he gets in people’s faces). A good dependable guy but kinda mysterious, I would not provoke. Played by Michael Dameski.

Mush: Last name is Myers. First name is possibly Nick? In the real strike, there was a boy named Nick Myers so. He lives in Harlem?? But who cares about canon, ignore that. Mush is a ‘hattan boy. Has a lisp. He considers himself to be the muscle of Manhattan and will throw down for his brothers. When the strikebreakers show up, Jack literally has to hold him back because Mush is just trying to get to those hoes so he can protect the rest of the boys just yellin’ “Nah man I’ll get ‘em”. Very caring and very selfless. Boy’s got muscle but is totally a teddy bear with a heart of gold. I’ve always thought of him as your classic rough and tumble but clean-cut caring all-American boy. Played by Nick Masson.

Henry: Last name is possibly butler after the real life newsboy, Henry Butler but the only confirmed name we have is Henry. Became a newsie at 11 when his dad died and his family lost their deli. Has a mom who he still sees sometimes but doesn’t live with. Boy really likes food. It reminds him of the deli with his dad and also he just really. likes. food. Fairly easygoing, practical, and will call guys out on their bullshit(e.g. whom the fuck cares about being famous). Played by Michael Rios.

Smalls: Smalls! I don’t got much at all but here’s what I know. Very commonly thought about as a girl as Smalls was played by girlsies for all(?) of the Broadway run. Pretty firey or at least high energy. Sometimes headcannoned as being leader of the Bronx because in the normal not filmed staging he’s the one to yell “so’s the Bronx”. Played by Julian DeGuzman.

Mike: Twin brother of Ike. These guys are hard to tell apart because they’re played by actual twins but here are some distinctions. Mike wears a brown cap, a plaid shirt, and green socks. Played by Jacob Guzman.

Ike: Twin brother of Mike. Has a dark grey cap, a striped shirt, pin-striped pants, and brown socks. Both twins seem to be pretty fun-loving. They kinda rough house a lot and are often messing around. Played by David Guzman

Hotshot: A Brooklyn newsie, I don’t really know his deal? A typical production doesn’t have Hotshot in it but he was in the filmed version and was apparently there towards the end of the broadway run. Kind of arrogant and tough. Sometimes seen as Spot’s second. Has literally only ever been played by J.P. Ferreri.

Vince/Myron: Ok so for newsies live they just threw in some extra newsboys for the heck of it and this guy is one of those. I don’t even know his name because the actor who plays him also plays a strikebreaker. On the wiki cast list, it just lists him as playing Vince and Myron with no indication as to who’s the newsie and who’s the strike breaker. Just from the nature of the names I can guess that Vince is the newsie? A big tough Brooklyn boy. Played by Stephen Hernandez.

Willie/Bart: Same deal as Vince/Myron. I’d be willing to guess that Willie is the newsie. Another Brooklyn boy. Played by Andrew Wilson.

Kenny: Also thrown in just for newsies live but I actually know his name. A pretty sunny guy, as far as I can remember he’s always smiling. Not in any of the pictures because he’s not in any of those scenes. It’s the same guy who plays darcy so go to carrying the banner or once and for all and find the guy in the yellow suit. That’s Darcy, Kenny looks just like that but in newsie clothes. Played by Jack Sippel.

Am I about to throw Bill and Darcey in just for kicks? yeah I think I am. Ok so this is a last minute decision and I don’t have pictures for these guys but here we go.

Bill: Not a newsie. Son of William Randolph Hearst, owner of the New York Journal. Full name William Randolph Hearst Jr. Katherine and Darcey’s friend. A sophisticated, classy, educated boy. Not tough in a street way but is kind of cold/reserved or maybe just a bit calculating. You can definitely tell he’s a rich boy by the way he holds himself. Looks like Mush bc they’re played by the same actor. Blue suit. Played by Nick Masson.

Darcey: Not a newsie. Son of Whitelaw Reid, owner of the New York Tribune. Still high class but more excitable and interested in the newsies world. Very kind and always concerned of behalf of others. His sweetness does not equal weakness, when Romeo approaches Kath in Carrying the Banner, he’s ready to handle the situation. Yellow suit. Played by Jack Sippel.

so there we go that is every newsie I could think of and then some. I’m gonna attach the pictures I have of an old wikipedia cast list which is what I use for reference since the one that's on wiki now isn’t great

That’s it! If you actually read all this, God bless you. If I got anything blatantly wrong or if you have any questions please talk to me

[ladala99]

More Thorough Thoughts on Mystery Dungeon Rescue DX Demo

Intro

When I was a kid, the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series was peak hype. You could actually play as a Pokemon, going on adventures in randomly-changing environments so nothing is ever exactly the same. The story blew me away, surprising me with how emotional video games could be. And that was just the first game, as the second improved upon so many things.

Here we are again, remaking the first games. I’m really excited for people who never played Red Rescue Team and Blue Rescue team to experience the story of the Ninetales curse for the first time. It’s a great story in a great game and it deserves to be seen by more people.

Graphics/Art Style

In addition, this game fixes something I never imagined would be fixed: the art style. When the Mystery Dungeon games transitioned to 3D, they lost the series’ original art style to be replaced with the generic cartoon art style every 3D cartoon game feels like it has. With these filters, it not only regains what the drawn graphics of the original imply, it recreates the concept art with its hatched shading and bold lines. Look at any screenshot of the game, and everything other than the Pokemon looks like a drawn picture, not a 3D environment. It is so pretty and it works so well.

Aside from the Pokemon, though. The filters make them fit in for the most part, but it is very clear that these 3D models (the same ones used in everything since Gen V - GameFreak, you taking notes?) are not made specifically for this game. It’s not bad that they stick out, since in a way, they should, but it does break the concept art look that everything else has.

It does keep Super’s walking animations, too, unfortunately. They animated four-legged Pokemon very generically and it doesn’t look great. The originals had unique animations for every Pokemon, mainly because every Pokemon had unique sprites. Now the uniqueness is largely gone. It’s not a dealbreaker by any means, but I miss Skitty’s pounces as it wanders around town.

Changes from the Originals

The personality quiz will sometimes suggest Pokemon from the opposite gender compared to the original. I haven’t tested it thoroughly, but when I took it, I chose girl and it gave me the Pokemon that used to be male-exclusive for that personality trait.

And now you can choose your starter regardless of the test results. I like the best-of-both-worlds approach here. You can also choose Partner Pokemon that used to be exclusively Heroes in the original, so that’s very neat.

Dungeon mechanics have been updated to be an evolution of Super’s mechanics. The demo ends too early in the game for me to form a full opinion on this. So far, I haven’t noticed it change the difficulty, as moves didn’t really have Base Power in the original as far as I noticed, so Tackle was just as good as Slam. Better even, as it has more PP. Now, you start with better moves, but it doesn’t seem to make it all that much easier. It was already easy.

I can’t say I’m the hugest fan of “press A and the game chooses the best move for you to use,” but if you use Super’s move button combo, you can choose a move yourself, anyways. And there is a “do nothing” button combo, so I’ll just have to get used to using that rather than pressing A when I want to do nothing.

Overall, though, moves are handled a lot better than they were in the originals, at least on the accessing them front. Some people are upset about the lack of a Basic Attack, but I made my farewells when Gates to Infinity came out and made them useless. It makes Max Elixirs less useless.

Story-wise nothing has changed so far other than Diglett being introduced slightly earlier, while also making you a shortcut to the Pelipper Post Office. Not sure if that means more story additions are on the way (I hope so!) or if it’s just a convenience thing with an in-universe explanation.

Really small thing that bothers me, though, is that wandering NPCs in town have zero weight to them. In the originals, NPCs had set ranges and you couldn’t move them. Now, you so much as brush up against them and they slide away from you. Even Gates and Super did it the original way. It feels wrong and cheap the new way; at least in most games that let you move NPCs, you need to exert some force. As it is here, I try to talk to them and push them away in the process.

Conclusion?

As far as I’ve seen so far, I’m pretty excited. But there’s still more to talk about that I will under the cut! It involves mild spoilers found out through the game’s Help Menus.

Pokemon Availability

Here’s something that’s neutral-to-negative: all signs point to these games consisting of only Gens I-III, evolutions/pre-evolutions(?) of Gen I-III Pokemon, Megas and Primals of Gen I-III Pokemon, and Lucario. More than the original? Yes. But in this day and age, it’s not very many. We criticized Sword and Shield for cutting the cast, and even before the DLC those games have more than this game does.

I understand it as an artistic choice. It’s the same reason Let’s Go, Pikachu and Eevee only have Kanto Pokemon. But when I get a new Pokemon game, especially Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, I want to use Pokemon I’ve never used before in that context. And I’ll be shocked if any of the newcomers are available before the post-game.

And not even Alolan Formes are in. The game’s TMs indicate that this game was developed to release during Gen VII, but they didn’t even do the obvious and make the Ninetales that lives on an icy mountain ice-type.

Shiny Pokemon Exist

That’s all we know, but that’s really cool. Apparently the Friend Bow helps recruit them.

Exp. All

Something that started in Gates to Infinity and continued into Super Mystery Dungeon is the fact that every recruited Pokemon gains experience along with you, regardless if they are on the adventure or not.

They changed the name of Friend Areas to Rescue Camps, and one of the Rare Quality descriptions seems to indicate that Pokemon in Rescue Camps gain experience with you.

Unlike with the main series, I don’t really mind it. I find the game more fun when I’m bulldozing my way through everything than I do when I’m struggling. But that’s just me.

I can see this being a disappointment for some. It’d be nice to be able to turn this on or off, especially since it would be funny considering the main series took away that option. But I’m just speculating now.

IQ Replaced

Instead we have Rare Qualities, which it seems some Pokemon come with, but others can be obtained through gummis. Gummis now only come in two varieties rather than the type-based ones, and thus are likely a lot rarer. Likely. I’ve got a job sitting in my Accepted Jobs list that rewards one so maybe they’re not all that rare.

Absolute Mover has an equivalent, so that’s all I really care about here. If I can have a Caterpie that crashes through walls, I’m happy.

Six Additional Story Beats?

The original Red/Blue Rescue Team had 12 total story portraits on the loading screen. DX has 18. This could mean one of two things:

One, it could have more actual events in the story. This I’m hoping for, but...

Two, more of the game’s story could have portraits. The original only showed the Legendaries you encountered, but there’s important events that happen that don’t involve Legendaries. Plus not all of the post-game events had portraits.

So, I want to be excited, but at the same time, I can’t get my hopes up.

Conclusion

I’m still excited, but it’s not exactly what I wanted from another Mystery Dungeon game. The gameplay’s still fun, of course, and I’m excited to see the rest of the game in this beautiful artstyle, but I have to temper my expectations. This isn’t Gen VII Mystery Dungeon where I can play as a Litten, nor Gen VIII Mystery Dungeon where I can have a Sobble partner.

This is Gen III+. It’s the original but prettier and with new mechanics. I’ll definitely love it, but it won’t be what I was hoping for.

[spinnerlockeplay]

Pokemon Platinum Nuzlocke (Part 1) - My Sinnoh Adventure Has Begun!

Finally! I got to play Pokemon Platinum on my old Nintendo DSi and it’s time to experience my very first Nuzlocke! In case you want to know the rules of this playthrough, the link is down below. Also, sorry in advance about the screenshots. That’s all I can do to capture my adventures from my DSi. With that, let’s get started!

Basic Nuzlocke Rules

Species Clause

Gym Level Limit: N/A for now

Detailed Rules

(Obviously, I’ll be playing as a female character named Spinner. Originality!)

After I watch a special news feature on TV, my rival, Top (yes, I know his name is similar to Hop from Sword and Shield. I wanted to name him that’s related to my name) came into my room and told me that he wanted to visit Professor Rowan so he and I can get our very own Pokemon. I know I need a Pokemon to start my Nuzlocke journey, so I head out and join him to meet with the Professor!

But there’s one problem... Route 201 has tall grass and my Mom told me not to go into it without any Pokemon by my side. However, Top decided that it was no big deal and we tried to run past through it (which I secretly against his stupid plan). Thankfully, Professor Rowan himself stopped us before we can get an inch closer towards the grass.

I was a bit nervous that he might be mad because of our reckless actions, but to our surprise, Rowan just asked us if we love Pokemon and when we adamantly shared our answers (I mean, who doesn’t love Pokemon?), he let us give us one of the three starter Pokemon after his assistant, Lucas came with his forgotten briefcase. Yeah, giving us our first Pokemon is nice and all, but I don’t know if you want to give them to some kids who were trying to disobey to go to another town.

Regardless, I decided to choose Piplup as my starter Pokemon, which later on, I nicknamed him Flippers.

After Rowan and Lucas left, Top challenged me to a battle out of excitement over on getting his Turtwig. Unlike in my previous Twitch stream, I managed to beat him easily with a combination of Growl and Pound. Once that's done, I told Mom everything that happened, which she suggested that I should head to Rowan's lab to thank him properly. I would try to go there, but Top stopped me so we could try getting a legendary Pokemon that was rumored to be in Lake Verity. I had no choice but to follow him so he won't do anything stupid.

(Question is that how would we even beat it with one Pokemon?)

When we got there, we noticed a strange man muttering about the legendary Pokemon and once he left, all I could get from his strange rants were his name, Cyrus. Well, at least he's no one important to my upcoming journey.

(Well, hello there, Mr. Not-Important Person.)

Anyways, we were about to try and find that Pokemon when Top realized something: Both of us have no Poke Balls! (Wow, what a shock... Not.) Because we had no choice but to leave and head straight to Professor Rowan's lab if he could give some to us. Well, I was planning to go there to thank him for giving me Flippers, so I dashed through the tall grasses of Route 201 to get to Sandgem Town while stopping by a shopkeeper NPC to get a free Potion.

(God, that would wake every Starly up.)

Once I'm there, I saw that Top already met Rowan before he dashed off again and met Lucas again. Once I'm in the lab, Rowan expressed how he was impressed by taking care of my Piplup. He eventually asked me to help with filling up the Pokedex and despite I don't need it for this playthrough, I decided to accept his offer to move on.

(Ouch, you're even louder than Top's THUD!)

Before I go back to Mom to let her know about my upcoming journey, Rowan gave me a TM that contains a Return move. Since this is before Black and White, TMs are one-time use and I have to choose carefully when using this TM. TM aside, I decided to forgo the Pokemon Center and just use the ledges in Route 201 to head back to Twinleaf Town because my Mom will just heal Flippers anyway. Once I did, she gave me a Journal as a gift for my upcoming journey and wished me luck.

(Uh... Okay, but who's going to keep an eye on the house?)

However, before I could head back to Sandgem, Top's mom stopped by and asked me to give a Parcel to Top. I did that and so, after Route 201, Lucas then forced me in a capture tutorial and after a few minutes of boredom, I finally got 5 Poke Balls and so, my Nuzlocke adventure has begun!

To start it off, I decided to catch some Pokemon in both Route 201 and 202. Unfortunately, the Pokemon I got was a Bidoof named and a Kricketot named Violin respectively... I was hoping for a Starly and a Shinx... Oh well... at least I’m playing with a Species Clause rule after all.

(Now I have to suffer its annoying cry... T_T)

After that, I'll end this post with some training on Route 202. I can't battle some trainers if I don't raise Buck and Violin's levels up to 5. But even if this post is done, my Nuzlocke journey has just begun! Thank you for reading and stay tuned for more of my Platinum Nuzlocke adventures!

[dcarevu]

DCAU #17: The Cat and the Claw (Part 2)

“Oh, I've been going to the Paris Grand Prix for years... You know, one of these days I think I'll enter it.”

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back. So how much did Part 2 of our first Catwoman story satisfy? Does it get a bowl of cream, or a spritz of water?

Episode: 16 Robin: No Writers: Sean Catherine Derek (story), Laren Bright (story), Jules Dennis (teleplay), Richard Mueller (teleplay) Director: Dick Sebast Animator: Akom Airdate: September 12, 1992 Grade: C

The first part of The Cat and the Claw had me interested, but certainly not blown away. It was a hit-and-miss episode with enough good ideas in it to allow me to enjoy it and wonder where the story was going to lead. I liked that it did give out a sense of substance, but honestly, I don’t think that the substance held steady between the credits of part 1 and the first scene of part 2. Part 2 does continue the story, but sucks out a lot of what made part 1 worth watching, and if I had never even watched part 2, I would not have been missing a damn thing aside from the realization that Catwoman ends up okay and the day is saved. But I think it was safe to assume that anyway, you know what I mean? Part 2 left very little impact on me, positive or negative, and for that reason I’m labeling it a C. Ironically, this is probably the episode with the highest stakes so far, right? With a conclusion that has a pretty epic scale. But it’s just not handled in an epic way. The concept is there, but the execution is lacking. Even if a studio like TMS or Spectrum were the ones to take care of the visuals, it still would have given the same feelings. The team knew what they were doing, giving it to Akom. Yeah, Akom’s work here is pretty bad, and Part 1 is more visually appealing in addition to being simply more entertaining. Even though it didn’t look the best, I could appreciate Sunrise’s unique style. When Sunrise failed, it still made for something that you don’t see everyday. Akom’s work was just plain old underwhelming. This is especially noticeable during the climax with their work on the fire (yeah, fire count, by the way). 

That fire looks like something from a Hanna-Barbera cartoon, guys. I’d expect to see similar on Scooby Doo. You don’t get a sense of the danger or the heat coming off that thing, and so you don’t get a sense of worry as Batman tries to get the hell out of there. Another very Akom scene is the car chase that happens when Bruce and Selena are together, out of costume. It looked laughably lame. That scene could have been so exciting and dynamic! But, at the same time, like I said, I understand why Atom was chosen. Even if the animation got me a little bit more invested, it still would have felt empty because of a lack of why I should be invested. It’s like watching a Transformers movie. Just brainless action. And why waste money on sending this episode to a better studio when a much better episode could be? The only real Akom-caused highlight was the train stuff. That looked pretty cool, likely because even though the train was moving, it still provided a static, stable platform for our characters, so it required less technical stuff to animate. All of the other cool stuff to look at was definitely in the storyboards. I liked the bit where the Bat Plane flew across the moon, kinda emulating that iconic moment in the 1989 film. And my favorite visual moment was when Selena’s secretary put on her glasses, and we see it via a POV shot. But then once things are crystal clear, a second later she walks into the shot, seamlessly transitioning it from POV to third person. 

More things like that could have probably almost created a B-level of enjoyment, admittedly. This part is also campier than part 1, with a lot more cheesiness thrown in, and that is to the episode’s detriment. The idea of Red Claw’s group of terrorists stealing a vial of disease from a military-guarded train is a really cool one, and I’ll take that over another standard police chase any day (until those chases start getting more god damn interesting). But something about watching them ride their little vehicle, leap on top of the train like ninjas, walking around on the train effortlessly, and dismantling it was pretty hard to take seriously. 

(This thug was in the last episode too, and he’s got this constant, static grimace. Makes me chuckle.)

Seeing Batman glide in with the bat-glider for the first time was neat, but then again, we get flown into a corn field. This is some of the cheesiest dialogue/line delivery on the show so far, even dwarfing the stuff from I’ve Got Batman In My Basement. No easy task! It’s like the writers here were aware of the serious tone, and trying, but still could only make a guy dressed like a bat so rational. I especially cringed at Batman’s shock that Red Claw was a woman. Having Catwoman be an admirable, strong character is doing feminism in a cartoon right. But this episode was too on-the-nose about it. Another instance is when Catwoman and Batman are tied up. Catwoman says something about their savior being a “woman’s touch”, and then she claws them out. Outside of the show trying to push a feminist message, why, in universe, would she say that exactly? Batman was not being sexist toward her. Red Claw certainly wasn’t. Red Claw is a woman for crying out loud! And how are her claws particularly feminine, anyway? Are they supposed to represent those stereotypical secretary nails? C’moooooon. Lame, lame, lame. I’m a feminist, and I’m all about cartoons showing that women are every bit as capable as men are. But if this is how they do it, then just don’t even try. And to add insult to injury, after we get Catwoman saving both of them, we end with her getting the shit beaten out of by Red Claw in a fight, merely because she does absolutely nothing to defend herself. Catwoman is an athletic cat-burglar who, in the previous episode, managed to give Batman a challenge. And now she’s just letting Red Claw kick her over and over in a way she easily should’ve seen coming. What a…confusing approach. 

While the superhero stuff was seriously below par, it’s slightly made up for because of how it explores Bruce and Selena’s relationship a little bit more. I liked seeing them on another attempted date, and so did Char! They’re really charming together, and it was incredibly satisfying to see Selena begin to enjoy his company. But as things start to go right for him, things also start to somehow go more wrong, and he discovers that Selena is Catwoman. To me, it’s believable that he wouldn’t have made that assumption right away. First of all, what are the odds. Second of all, a much different environment, mindset, and appearance. Plus, it’s not as though he was seeing Catwoman every single night, right? Most of his interactions of her was as normal human beings dressed in normal human clothes. Bruce mentions that he hasn’t felt a fondness of a woman like this in a very long time (Mask of the Phantasm entered my head for a second), and it feels so genuine. Somehow over these 16 episode and pilot, with a pretty small amount of spoken words for a main character, we’ve gotten to know Bruce…or…Batman…quite well. We can tell when he’s being phony, we can tell when he’s being sincere. This was sincere. And because his Bruce persona is such an exaggeration of his decency, spotting cracks in that just makes you feel something, man, especially when it shows us that hint of affection. This can be compared to Bruce Wayne talking to Harvey Dent about how proud he was that Harvey was seeking psychological help (Two-Face Part 1). These moments show us that Batman still has this warmth to him. It may be like a candle in the wind, fighting to stay alive, but every now and then there is a spritz of gasoline. For a second, Bruce Wayne and Batman are one. But y’know what? This is all well and good, however it makes me wish that the Red Claw stuff was absent. In part 1, it was different. I wanted to know where it was going. But without decent payoff, there is no reason for the terrorist story element at all. This would have been so much stronger if it were a half hour dedicated to building up the relationship of two troubled adults, fighting for what they believe in, succumbing to a certain level of darkness, all while not being able to find common ground. Paul Dini could have done it. Alan Burnett could have done it. Y’know what, Tom Ruegger probably could have done it. But no. We got writers who felt the need to add in that unnecessary, goofy superhero stuff that was not meant to be the focus of Batman the Animated Series when it didn’t need to be. But if there is one major strength of the superhero stuff, it’s the very ending. Because despite what Batman and Catwoman just went through together, saving countless people, Batman still needed to put her in handcuffs (and not in the way he probably wishes he could). 

(Blurry screenshot, apologies...by the way, are bat-handcuffs really necessary, Batman?)

That was paaaaaainful, but the right kind of painful (again, not in the way Batman probably wishes it was). Having Batman state that he didn't want her taken away like a common criminal was a great addition, and I really want to know which writer came up with that line. Whoever did got what makes Batman and Catwoman so interesting. If only they could have gotten a crack at this episode on their own. As some final words, despite me giving this episode a C, I went back and forth between a C or a D many times. I’m still not entirely sure which is my true grade. It depended on what I was writing about. When I was complaining, I was sure that I should make it a D. But as I was talking about some of the more positive elements, I thought maybe a C was more appropriate. Bottom line, I’m not sure. I think a C is the most fair, though, because aside from just being a middle of the road grade, it could also represent me being completely confused on my opinion. Is that understandable?

(Here we clearly see that the section of the train that was bombed is still very much intact)

(Batman was very much on model throughout the episode, particularly in the face)

Fire count: 8 Char’s grade: B

Next time: See No Evil Full episode list here!

[heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon]

Wow, Orn for someone who had like an entire bitch baby tantrum and was once pitching a complete, un-ironic “Did you just Assume My Gender?! TM” fit over me accidentally referring to you as “he” during that tagline that I was just too lazy to retype for you after I realized, I cannot believe that you just let your own anon just assume my gender just like that? Who says I’m a girl?! ;) 💋   

So a bimbo passively making fun of blocked losers in the tags of her own blog that said blocked losers have no right to be looking at because they’re blocked is apparently a crime. Again.

I’m not reading your posts in their entirety cause you’re a blocked and boring scuztron, obviously.

No way, Lin Manuel Ellis Walker, why don’t you delete your socials and get a real job instead?

And why does that last lead in before the “read more” that I’ll never be clicking just make it sound like you want to rape me? Ew. 

 And once more with the misgendering too? How do agender incel bot assume I am “She”, huh?  👁 👄 👁

 On second thought, how about Orn and Leeanne don’t put me personally under a microscope and all their anon cronies simply don’t report back to them on every single little thing that I do so that they can still look at my blog even though I blocked them both in April of 2020, hm?

“I feel secondhand embarrassment for that V*vzipop persons ‘show’. The Self Insert Mary Sue Special Snowflake called ‘Charlie’ is a hypocrite and some of Medrano’s concepts could be good if she didn’t execute it so poorly ... I don’t know why she’s so careless and can’t take criticism and she REALLY should be considering the reputation that she’s built for herself as a Known Racist Homophobe and Pedophile Dog Fucker that she continues to worsen with every tweet and passage of her countless ‘Apology Posts’ because it’s just sad.”

“Nevermind, V*vizieshit back with her bullshit again.” 

 No, you ableist grayface you, this is just how hot people treat blocked people who have no right to their respect anymore because they’ve been blocked for over two years.

  They were my friends, they were both boys, and we weren’t dating, and one of them did sex work, you’re literally being misogynistic and whorephobic.

Yeah because they ghosted me and we’re not friends anymore so now I can vent however the fuck I want just like how I can be as mean as fuck as I want to people who complain about being blocked because they have no boundaries.

I’d ask how grayface could take something like “embellishing to fit in” as the worst insult ever but like...  This is the logic of people who follow a sexless, loveless 30+ arsehole who gets mad at 12 year olds for blocking them and thinks that being called a virgin is acephobic. And once again, a person who thinks that “scrutinizing” and “picking apart” other people is completely normal behavior for a human.  

Bitch if I don’t know your name how else am I supposed to make fun of you? You have every excuse to use any of the two names that I’ve provided on my profile and you still can’t do that because you’re still too busy trying to type out my whole entire url in order to dehumanize me  and then complaining that I’m too big for you .  Shut the fuck up.

Honey, this is the Hazbin Hotel fandom, the second my crippled arse got snapped at for saying I hated abled-bodied mentally ill people, calling someone “honey” and then got called “condescending” by an abled-bodied mentally ill virgin for showing that much patience and understanding in the same week, I knew that I was on no ones side but my own. And considering that I had to block you both (I’m considering both Leeanne and Orns anons a hivemind)  three times over in order to get you to stop talking about me, I think the last question answers itself, now doesn’t it?

Did you really just screenshot a post that passively mentions your blocked url but not specifically Leeanne’s? I can’t even vague the given names of people I’ve already had blocked for two years on my own blog and on posts that will not show up in any fandom related tags and have nothing to do with fandom? But you can screenshot that and bring it back into a fandom context to be “discoursed” over? As the blocked person who has no right to be looking at my blog anymore because I went and set that boundary that you’ve both now more than violated? Use a website blocker if you haven’t already for Christs sake, SANSFUCKO!

.... It’s so interesting how you think that someone venting about you on a blog that blocked you in 2020, and venting specifically about how you haven’t left them alone since you first complained about them blocking you in 2020, and have instead of just respecting being blocked kept monitoring me every time I try to vent, about a situation that you were directly involved in and so I have to bring you up to provide people that context even if it’s in passing, is considered, “we’re literally talking”. 

 Now I’m convinced that you wish I could take your turbo virginity .  I DON’T REMEMBER BECAUSE I DON’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOU. 

Now for the last time, I have absolutely no idea what triggered your little mental breakdown about me 9 months ago when you’ve been blocked since 2020 and we literally haven’t talked since the night I hit that button (because blocked people literally talking both around me and at me and trying to block evade me, is not the same as my right to vent about it ) but the fact that you have zero notes on your last screed that I’m not reading speaks volumes.  Good thing I’ll never have to read another from ether of you ever again.

Gorgeous, gorgeous gimps don’t click “readmores” and use website blockers. 

I am, a Gorgeous, gorgeous gimp.  (✿◕‿◕✿)

[aldmerii-blog]

hey it’s a tutorial on how i make gifs

its a long one

carly, what programs do i need? 

what a good question! basically, you need a program to record video (if you’re making gifs of video games), a program to take frames of the video you recorded (or the movie or show you’re giffing because you can do that too, obviously), and a graphic processing program (it’s photoshop, you need photoshop)

also if you’re recording your own game footage you need a computer capable of running that game well. ideally you want medium to high settings at 60fps (this varies; like you want to record, say, skyrim at high settings and probably modded, but newer games like mass effect andromeda, just medium-high settings should be fine!)

for video recording, i strongly recommend: 

nvidia shadowplay

i think you can only use this if you have an nvidia graphics card. it’s very good because it automatically records at 60fps and at up to 4k (so like it’s good for taking regular video for video purposes also) and it starts up very quickly (so when you hit record, it’s only a few seconds before it starts recording). in-game, you hit alt+f9 to start recording. 

xbox game dvr

i used this for a long time and it’s perfectly satisfactory, and great if you don’t have an nvidia graphics card. it comes with windows 10. you need to go into windows settings and set the quality to High and the framerate to 60fps. the only drawback is that it takes a hot minute to start up the first time you use it in a gaming session (like 10-30 seconds) and there are some games it won’t open over (i had issues with both assassin’s creed odyssey and far cry 5). in-game, you hit ctrl+alt+r to start recording. 

for frame-taking:

gomplayer

has a slightly imprecise method of screenshotting, that is you have to time your “burst capture” while the video is playing - you can’t find the spot you want, pause it, start your capturing, and then play the video to have it start at an exact moment. however it really captures every frame and i’ve never had any issues with it. best advice is to record more frames than you need to and delete the ones you don’t need in windows explorer or photoshop. to open the screen-capture window, you hit ctrl+g

potplayer

i used this one for a long time, too! it does what i said gomplayer doesn’t do, which means you can pause it and start screencapturing and it’ll start from where you paused it when you hit play. i’ve had a few issues with it not actually capturing every frame even when i have it set to do so. but that might be just me. to open the screen capture window, you hit ctrl+g

for graphic handing:

photoshop. specifically cs5 -- that’s what i’ve used for about half a decade. i’m sure a lot of the steps are similar in cs6 and cc but i’ve never used either of them and i can’t help you learn those. 

that’s it. no other options.

okay great!!!!!!! you got ur software set up. now what???

if you want to make gifs of video games where you use your own footage, read this bit. if not skip down to the next header. 

at the most basic level, with creative cropping, you don’t really have to do anything more than record the screen of the game you’re playing. for a lot of games, this is what you have to do (dragon age origins and 2, stardew valley, etc). HOWEVER. there are ways to get different shots in some games and i’ll take you through skyrim/fallout 4 and dragon age inquisition (and i think other frostbite engine games?) if you have questions about other games you’re welcome to ask!

bethesda products (skyrim and fallout 4 mainly)

bethesda is very nice and includes console commands that let you get some good cinematic shots in their base games. these are the same for both skyrim and fallout 4 because they’re the same engine. 

tfc

your bread and butter, baby. this is “toggle free camera” or “toggle fly camera” -- it detaches you from your character basically, and you can fly around. if you are in third person when you enter the console command, your character will remain visible and you can take pictures of them. in first person, theyre not. (also, drawn weapons will disappear in first person). note that in fallout 4 third person, your character will continue to rotate/strafe as you move the camera. 

you can add a 1 to the end of the command (tfc 1) and it will also freeze time. this is good for taking screenshots, not gifs

entering tfc again will turn it off

tm

‘toggle menu’ -- this turns off the hud, including the crosshair. this is. very important. you don’t want the menu in ur gifs ok. 

it also hides the console window! so it may be a little confusing. but generally if the grass/water/dust is moving, the console window isn’t open.

typing tm again will reenable the menus

sucsm #

the default free cam is very fast and imprecise. i usually use sucsm 1 to slow down the speed at which the camera moves. 

sgtm #

set global time multiplier. this one isn’t hugely necessary but i still find myself using it sometimes. default is 1. you can set it to, like sgtm .01 to basically freeze the game while you get the camera into position if you’re trying to capture an action. also sometimes if i think things are moving too fast or too slow i’ll change the timescale. MAKE SURE you set it back to 1 when you’re done!

i Heavily suggest, especially for skyrim, that you use an ENB if your computer can handle it. it makes the game look nice, but it also usually includes depth of field which i am an absolute slut for. if not, use the mod dynavision for a DoF effect (available for both skyrim and fo4!)

and then you just have fun with it. getting good shots takes some practice. play with it. i tend to record long sessions (~5-10 minutes) with a LOT of different shots to pick from when i watch it back. 

frostbite engine (dragon age inquisition and mass effect andromeda, notably)

here’s where we use the Cinematic Tools, lads! these are a little more difficult. note that there are ct for a lot of games that i don’t play but i’m assuming they work the same. i’ve also never used CT in andromeda but it’s the same engine so they also probably work the same. so i’m mainly talking about DA:Inquisition.

OKAY SO. start the game. load ‘er up. you want to run origin and DAI as admin, and then once you’re in game, start the CT as admin, too. the controls window will open, and then another command prompt type window will open and hack into the matrix. you don’t have to do anything with it, but note that if you close the command prompt window, it will close the game. 

okay! party time. there are lots of other tutorials on using the CT, btw, so if i don’t explain it sufficiently you can either ask me or look up other tutorials. 

first, i usually take gifs of characters in DAI, which means i wait until cutscenes so we can see them talking or making faces or whatever. you can also do scenery gifs or whatever! 

so we’re in a cutscene. first and foremost check “freeze time” and then “enable”. set up your shots. start recording. THEN uncheck “freeze time”. that’s all in the “free camera” tab of the CT and technically all you need. But wait, there’s more. we’ve got two other tabs!

in this tab, I most often use “depth of field” because we’ve already established that i love a strong DoF. all these things are a little hard to understand and mostly require a lot of messing around.

focus distance

pretty self explanatory -- it’s the distance from the camera that objects will be in focus. for portraits, i usually have it at 1.125.

blur factor

how blurry the stuff that’s out of focus will be. i usually set it somewhere between 4 and 7, though you can go higher or lower. dealer’s choice. 

blur add

makes everything blurry regardless of focus. don’t use it. 

blur filter

i almost always set it to gaussian 9 but it doesn’t make that much of a difference. 

dof type

always set it to sprite

max blur

i absolutely do not know what this does and don’t use it. 

near start/end

with this you can kind of expand “focus distance” to include more varied distances. i usually don’t mess with this and i suggest you don’t. 

far start/end

most useful in outdoor scenes. usually it’ll be set to like 100, meaning that there’s a gradient way out to the most blurred parts. if you bring it lower, the gradient distance gets shorter, so the background gets blurrier closer to your focus. what i set it to depends entirely on the scene. just try messing with it and see what it does for you. 

make sure you hit the green enable button on the left and Also tick “enable” on the DOF screen to use it. 

this tab is a little more useful for screenshotting but i’ll include it since i’m going over the CT anyway. i have never messed with global fov or timescale BUT

shadowmap resolution

i usually set it down to 512 for smooth, soft, realistic shadows. otherwise they look kinda stripey. 

resolution scale

NOT FOR GIFS. do not use this for gifs. but DEFINITELY do use it for screencaps. set it to two (i’ve had my computer freeze from trying to set it to 4, so like, be careful). it basically doubles the resolution of everything on screen and makes it very pretty but it’ll ruin your framerate so don’t try to record with it. 

okay, I’ve got my footage, now what!

now we’re gonna open it in whichever player you picked. 

GOMPLAYER:

for gomplayer, you’re going to press ctrl + g to bring up the screencapture window. i Don’t remember what the original settings are, but you wanna make sure your quality is set to 255 (highest) and that it’s set to original resolution. 

now the slightly hard part. you gotta hit “burst capture” while the video is playing, so it’s slightly imprecise. for that reason i have the number (burst capture images) set much higher than i’ll use, so that i make up for the imprecision. after you capture, go in and delete the frames you don’t need, either in windows explorer or after you’ve loaded them into photoshop.

POTPLAYER:

just pause your video, hit ctrl+g, copy my settings, click start, and then play your video. potplayer will capture every frame. 

i should have mentioned this earlier but you have to have a folder to save your screencaps in. i usually organize by GIFS>game name># what its a gif of>a numbered folder for each gif in the set. but it’s up to you. just probably don’t save to your desktop or wherever the default location is. 

AND NOW THE FUN PART!!

open photoshop!!! if it’s your first time here, go to window>animation so that you’ll. have the animation window open. 

now go file > load files into stack > browse, and find the frames we just took. select em all. click ok. 

you’re probably going to start off in timeline view. we don’t want that yet. click the box in the bottom right corner that looks like multiple little boxes to switch to frame view. 

in frame view, click the menu box thing. and click “make frames from layers” and then “reverse frames”

now select all your frames, and on any one of them, select the arrow next to “0.0 sec” (this is the frame delay). select “other”

what you set the frame delay to depends on what your footage frame delay originally was. if you’re using game footage, it was probably 60fps, in which case you should set the delay to 0.04 sec. if it was 30 fps, I usually go 0.06 to 0.08. play around with it and decide which you like best. there’s a play button so you can see how the delay looks before you continue.

now we switch back over to timeline view. so click the same button as we used to get to frame view. 

now select all your layers, in the layer panel. right click on them and click “convert to smart object” 

here is usually where I do my scaling/cropping. tumblr photoset sizes are 540px for full width, 268 for 2 wide, and 177 for 3 wide. KEEP IN MIND when making especially 540px gifs that the size limit is 3mb. so you can’t make them super tall or super long (time-wise). 

the gif of calcifer i’m making is going to be 540x250. make use of set image size (ctrl + alt + i) and canvas size (ctrl + alt +c). set the width of 540 with image size and then crop the canvas to your desired height with canvas size.

okay! technically we can be done. this is what my gif looks like right now:

however i like to color and edit mine. yknow. here are my sharpening settings. I cannot help you with coloring because i’m bad at it. at best i will suggest you look at and download resource colorings from blogs like itsphotoshop

anyway, to sharpen: filter>sharpen>smart sharpen

and then apply your coloring. and save with ctrl + alt + shift + s, or just file > save for web and devices. set your file type to GIF. two things to look at:

1) MAKE SURE YOU SET THE LOOPING OPTIONS TO “FOREVER”. i put this in caps because I am an idiot who messed this up all the time when i first started. 

2) keep an eye on your file size!! if it’s over 3mb (mine, down in the left corner, says it’s 2.697, so it’s fine) then you can try to reduce the number of colors. but don’t go below 128 colors, because then it starts to look bad. instead you can try reducing the height or going back and cutting down the number of frames (so basically remaking the gif again :( ). 

okay great, click save. save it. you’re done. here’s our calcifer. 

and that’s it! i hope this made sense and like. absolutely ask if you have questions. 

[shima-draws]

The RG Project v 2.0

It’s here, it’s here at last! I have finally finished updating the RG Project and have brought to you a better, shiny version with a whole bunch of new things in store!

A couple things to note, for those of you who haven’t played the first version before:

★ To put things simply, this is the exact same FireRed you're all used to playing. Except...your rival isn't a total jerk and actually genuinely cares about you! He flirts with the player character throughout the entirety of the game. I originally intended this to be for GREEN and RED (hence the name the RG project), though Blue/Leaf is still a playable character, of course. It just works better if you play as Red!

★ The game needs an emulator to run it. I’ve included that in the project folder, so no worries about hunting one down later!

★ I also put in a very vital read me text inside of the folder as well. Please, please please read that before you start the game. It has all of the proper instructions of how to set it up, along with everything else I’ve added into the game.

★ Here’s some of the changes from the main game besides the obvious: -Red’s sprites are actually those of the Red from the original RGBY. (I like OG Red better, I’m sorry. I had to change it lol) Blue/Leaf’s sprites have not changed. -Pikachu’s chances of being encountered in Viridian Forest have risen immensely. (That way you don’t have to search for 3 hours trying to find one.) -Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle are available for capture on routes 24, 9 and 6, respectively. (All in the grass, no surfing required. But take warning that their appearance rates are pretty low, so you might be searching for a while!) -Eevee’s gender ratio has changed so there is a 50/50 chance for it to be a male or female. The starters have changed to 65% male, 35% female. -Chances of encountering a shiny Pokemon are at 3% (which is HUGE compared to the 0.000122% percent chance it was before). -Legendary Pokemon have higher capture rates (easier capture). -All 150 Pokemon are available in this game. (For real this time. I promise.) -You can buy sun stones and moon stones at Celedon Dept. Additionally, the price of stat boosting items and TMs have decreased exponentially! -There’s some extra Easter Eggs I threw in there as well! (References to my other Pokemon hack, Pokemon Legends!) -You can go to Navel Rock and Birth Island by getting the tickets from Four Island from a special character.

★ IMPORTANT! I added a bit of extra dialogue at the VERY end of the game! When you first start out you’ll notice that there’s a set of stairs in your rival’s house that wasn’t there in the original FRLG, and that there’s a Clefairy blocking the way. This is on purpose. In order to get to the extra dialogue and explore your rival’s room, you have to get through the Sevii Islands quest and find your rival’s room key after your last encounter on Six Island. Using the room key, you can give it to Clefairy, who will unlock the door and abruptly disappear afterwords (I didn’t feel like fixing it even though it’s really weird, it just vanishes in front of you lmfao). I hope you all enjoy the super cheesy yet adorably romantic extra dialogue! And you can access it whenever you want! (Green will repeat it over and over. It’s lovely.)

There’s bits of dialogue from other characters talking about you and your rival, so you’ll have to keep an eye out to catch them all! There’s a lot more changed dialogue from last time, and while some of the lines are a bit cheesy (then again, all Pokemon games can be cheesy at times lol) they’re pretty enjoyable to read.

★ If you have the old RG Project file, your save will not transfer over. I repeat, your save will not transfer over. This is an entirely new game, so you won’t be able to pick up where you last left off on the older version–you have to start from the very beginning!

★ And lastly, if there are any bugs besides those that have already been stated within the txt file, please let me know and I will do my best to fix them!

★ I’ll leave you with one more message before giving you the download link. PLEASE DO NOT REUPLOAD THIS GAME. If I find that it’s been uploaded anywhere else than where I originally uploaded it, I will get it taken down and then I will take down the original file myself. If I discover anyone has stolen my work, I will take this game off the Internet permanently. Again, let me repeat: YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED, AND YOU SHALL ABSOLUTELY NOT REDISTRIBUTE THIS GAME. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Okay! Now that that’s been cleared up, have fun, enjoy yourselves and let me know what you think! You are more than welcome to upload screenshots as long as you credit me/tag me. I’d love to see your playthrough and opinions!

If you have any problems, let me know! Shoot me a message and we can try to figure it out together. Though, my instructions in the txt file are very clear, so it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out I think. Hopefully there aren’t any bugs or glitches since I haven’t tested the entire game myself, but I’ll fix them when needed!

The download is in a .zip folder, so you’ll have to extract it yourself.

And here it is!

Thank you so much for reading, and please enjoy ===THE RG PROJECT V 2.0=== AKA Pokemon HeartRed

EDIT: I had to reupload it again I’M SORRY the dialogue at the end was all screwed up but it should be good now!

[1wngdngl]

Pokemon Shield playthrough - Part 4

Sorry it’s been a while, but I’m back with another post. This one covers getting the first Gym badge.

First, let’s hang out the the Wild Area on this beautiful evening.

Hanging out in the camp. My Pokemon can get quite competitive seeing who can get the ball first.

It’s weird seeing this fiery coal monster playing happily.

Okay, enough of that. It’s time to enter the mines.

It’s really pretty in here, with gemstones practically falling out of the walls. I don’t think real mines are /quite/ this abundant.

Also, this is the first cave area in the game, and it’s where you realize that there are no true “random” battles in the game  - you can always see the Pokemon coming and have a chance to get away. It makes the cave more exciting, seeing Pokemon chasing after you.

A secret exit leads to this TM.

Oh, also apparently the “headphones” item I got earlier just lets you adjust sound levels in the options. Not sure why they would make that an in-game unlockable instead of just being there from the start...

Some more screenshots of the lovely mines. I bet Sableye love this place.

I acquire what seems to be a new type of hold item. When I first saw “heavy boots”, I thought of the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time ;)

Oh, and I finally get to fight this guy. The developers seem to have deliberately made him as aggravating as possible.

He seem to be on a mission to collect Wishing Stars, which are (iirc) what powers the Dynamax bands. Is he trying to keep other trainers from having access to Dynamax, thus reducing their chances of winning the Gym Challenge? Or maybe he’s collecting them to power something else, perhaps on behalf of the Chairman?

He uses this really weird new Pokemon, that seems like it might be a Psychic-type, or maybe Fairy. What’s up with the hat it wears?

Finally, I reach the end of the mines. It was actually a pretty short trip - I hope future dungeons have more to do.

Out in the sun again on Route 4. It’s a route of gentle hills and golden grain, with Turffield nestled in a bowl in the middle.

I’m happy to see that you can encounter Eevee in the wild again, making it much easier to get all of its evolutions.

Pumpkaboo reappear, and they still come in different sizes.

And here’s a surprise - a Galarian Meowth! My Mystery Gift Meowth didn’t look like this, so I was never expecting to see /another/ regional variant for this Pokemon. It looks like something from “Where the Wild Things Are”.

This variant is a Steel-type, weirdly enough. It has a massive beard too. I wonder what on earth Galarian Persian looks like?

And here’s the mascot himself, ladies and gentlemen. It weirds me out how Pikachu and Eevee have the voice-acted cries; while all the other Pokemon get their naturalistic, animal-sounding cries. I wonder how all of Eevee’s evolutions will sound?

Our first true meeting with Milo.

I finally manage to catch my own Milcery. Since it’s called the “Cream” Pokemon, it definitely has to evolve into Alcreamie somehow...

I really want to have a Fairy on the team, so Jake the Wooloo gets booted off.

Hmm, maybe I can use these sweets to evolve Milcery? Are there different flavors of sweets?

I make it to Turffield, where good ol’ Hop is waiting for me.

Before doing the story stuff, I first check the bounds of how far I’m allowed to go. Here’s a literal broken bridge stopping me.

New types of jobs are available now. There's some strategy in choosing which Pokemon to send, since a lot of Pokemon have two types. It might be best to start with the job that requires rare types like Ghost, so that you can use each Pokemon most efficiently.

It looks like progressing in the game will give you new backgrounds for your League Card. This one featuring tiny Wooloo seems to be unlocked by reaching Turffield.

I now have the ability to try the daily lotto. I’m so happy all these features are right in the Pokemon Center so you don’t have to go hunting for them.

Of course, I’ve only had like one trade so far, so I don't have loads of trainer ID’s to help me win...

I go back to the camp I passed on the way and hang out for a bit. I’m so glad there are NPC camps for people who don’t have the online service. This one even has two trainers in it.

We make probably the best curry ever.

Before going to the Gym, I explore a bit around the village. It’s very pastoral, but has some interesting rock structures too. The paths can get a bit confusing with lots of dead-ends.

At the hillside overlook, I run into Sonia again, who contemplates what the glyph could represent. It must be some kind of legendary Pokemon, and I’ll probably have to fight it at some point in order to save the region.

Maybe the Chairman has a plan to release lots of Dynamax energy into the environment, thus causing /all/ wild Pokemon to turn huge and powerful? But he already basically controls the region - what would he need an army of big Pokemon for?

I really like that you can get actual water from this water fountain. And only /this/ water fountain, apparently.

This small girl presents us with a confusing riddle.

Ugh, I can't quite get my face to line up. The Pokemon on the right is obviously that squirrel, but what’s this big rock one that seems to be made out of glyph stones?

Okay, time to go to the Gym. First, here’s a re-cap of my current team.

I wonder how the Gym leaders get assigned their League numbers. Is August 31 his birthday or something?

Oh look, it’s the Pokeball cosplayer again. From a distance, his face looks like a weird bird.

I trade away my cool Galarian Meowth for a boring normal Meowth. I wonder if /both/ types of Meowth can Gigantamax?

This is the most ridiculous mission ever. The things I do for fame. Me - a sheep herder!

There are also annoying trainers that keep getting in the way. Can I instruct the herd of Wooloo to just stampede over these guys?

Counting /these/ sheep won’t put anyone to sleep.

I wonder how long it takes to reset the mission each time someone clears it. Oh well, not my problem.

Finally, we are on to the first Gym leader - this child-faced, buff farmer-dude.

I am so ready :)

There’s something kind of creepy about Milo’s face. His freckles make it look like he doesn’t have a nose.

You know, I just realized this Gym is probably horrible for spectators with allergies.

Another easy victory for me and my lump of coal.

I get my first badge! Looks like all the badges fit together into one big mosaic. I wonder how the merchandisers will handle creating real-world replica badges.

Can’t say no to free clothes. Maybe I”ll wear it at the next Gym.

I love that NPC’s are starting to recognize me. When I finally have my championship match, you think my mom will bother to come watch in person?

I also solved the riddle and found this item. You want it too? Then figure it out yourself ;)

I am now allowed to cross the bridge to Route 5, but I decide to hold off for the moment (this post is long enough anyways ;) )

First, I give another go at the lottery, but I only get milk as a prize. What if I was lactose-intolerant, huh?

My Pokemon are making quite a name for themselves on the job market.

Then I spend quite a while exploring more parts of the Wild Area. It really makes for some great screenshots.

This bug Pokemon is apparently super-rare, so I was lucky to find one in a Max Raid Battle.

Of course, I already have both a Bug and a Fire type, so you know where this one’s going :)

More lovely screenshots.

I can’t wait to get to that distant dragon city beyond the bridge.

I tried really hard to see if my trainer would jump off this cliff. Come on, the water will break your fall! ^.^

It’s scary seeing a Corviknight just flying around - they’re huge!

I’m kinda disappointed there are no actual giants here.

Another raid battle done. I love that you get a bone for beating a dog.

Finally, something fun to end this post with: November 21st was my birthday :)

[recursivelyassembling]

So Maggie and I and a couple of our friends picked up Pokémon Gold/Silver on 3DS virtual console, and to make things interesting we decided to pick each other’s teams. Since this kind of thing is more fun if we keep each other updated about our playthroughs, and since, you know, blog, I’m going to sporadically post updates here. It’s a pain to get screenshots off a 3DS without custom firmware (and will probably be impossible after MiiVerse dies in November), but I’ll try not to wall of text too much. She says, just before hiding the post below the cut because it got huge. Welp.

So, yeah. I’ll be playing Gold version, the first Pokémon game I ever owned. The rules are we can only use the Pokémon that the group selected for us in fights, though we’re allowed HM and other field move users as long as they don’t fight. That’s all - this isn’t a Nuzlocke or serious challenge run, really. Just meant to change things up a little. My team is:

Chikorita/Bayleaf/Meganium

Shuckle

Eevee/Espeon

Wooper/Quagsire

Zubat/Golbat/Crobat

Sentret/Furret

Which is pretty good really. We all could have been super mean but nobody was.

Fun fact: I love Cyndaquil dearly, and almost always pick it anymore when playing G/S/C or HG/SS, but in my first ever run of Gold version, I picked Chikorita. So this is a little bit nostalgic for me. It’ll be interesting to see how I end up feeling about Meganium now, with over sixteen years of experience playing this series behind me.

First impressions are that the first twenty minutes or so of every Pokémon game are exactly the same - chomping at the bit to get to the part where I get Pokéballs. Went, got the egg, ran back home. First Rival battle comes after you’ve had a chance to fight a bit, so it’s not as much as a crapshoot as fighting Blue the first time.

This is how he introduces himself before you name him. You’re meant to come up with your own name for him, as in R/B/Y, but being a very literal minded twelve year old I told the cop his name was “???” when the chance came up. And so it stayed ??? for the whole game. Since this is a nostalgia playthrough, and all, I uh

yeah.

Anyway, now I’ve got Pokéballs, it’s time to start assembling my crew. It’s impossible to catch a Setret above level 3, because Pokémon thinks grinding adds to the experience. So I have to bite the bullet and just get whatever. Difficulty - Tackle currently does just over 50% HP in damage to a level 3 Sentret, and Razor Leaf likes to crit. Guess I’m chucking Pokéballs at a half health Sentret and praying.

It’s an aspirational name. The random number gods were kind enough to give me this little fluff on my second attempt, which is good because this game is incredibly tightfisted with its monetary rewards and Pokéballs are expensive.

I’ve never really used Furret beyond the early game before because it’s not that great, but I have some hopes for it. It has the usual Normal-type access to an interesting range of TMs, something I historically haven’t paid much mind to but which matters a lot more on a limited run like this.

Now, with the Professor Elm/Mr. Pokémon dance out of the way, I’m free to beat up all the trainers on my way to Violet. I didn’t catch any screens of that. My apologies to anyone who wanted to see the top percentage of Rattata. The next step is the Gym, however...

Falkner is a giant middle finger to anyone who came from Gen I expecting the grass type starter to give them an easy early game like Bulbasaur did. So I want to grab one more member of my team before I take him on, and that means fumbling around the aptly named Dark Cave for a bit.

I’m so glad that fit. Almost as glad as I am that chat decided to be nice and give me Zubat. Much as Zubat is mostly known for being a common early game filler Pokémon like Sentret and Ratatta, it’s much better than that normally implies. I’ve never been disappointed with Crobat on a story team, and while it’s not my go-to Gen II flier (that’d be Skarmory), it’s available for basically the whole game, which again is kind of important on a run like this one.

So that’s it, that’s the whole gang for now. It’s time to bring SCREECHING up to speed a little and then go beat up Falkner. That’ll have to wait for my next post, though, I think.

So, yeah. I’m gonna tag these #Pick My Pokémon, mostly for my own reference but also I guess other people could find them that way if they want.