#i'd gen like to make lore around them since they don't have any :)

[viidemo]

Guys I am THISSSS close to uploading art of my old FFI ocs 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️

[theposhperyton]

if you have the time could you tell me literally everything you know about isfd?

I found your blog through the one piece posts and now need to learn anything I can about this obscure fandom

An ISFD ask from someone who isn't already lost in the sauce? (<-Self call-out) O glorious day!

Gosh, there's so much, I don't really know where to start. I've been following this micro-fandom for YEARS now, and it's one of those things that just keeps on giving. The amount of lost/missing content and the frickin nuked forum (I'm a survivor, baebee!!) really does sometimes make it feel like the universe is trying to wipe us out, but hey. ISFD fans are basically cockroaches. Killable in theory, but surprisingly hearty in an actual life or death of a fandom scenario.

As for the actual content of ISFD that I engage in, I'm a rare(?) case where I kinda dabble in everything. I can confidently say I'm a member of the ** original ** gen of fans, so I've been around for the noteable eras, and have obsessed over every major character group at one time or another, as well as some niche characters (Cyan and his 2 other fans, rise up 🔥🔥)

I gotta say though, I am currently obsessed with the mafia portion of the universe (and, tbh, by extension, the Marama family. They are to me what the Kardashians are to some)

In particular, Phillip Varic has been my consistent blorbo since last September. It is not an exaggeration to say I've averaged about 40 drawings of him a month since then (my friends and I have counted. I should be on my strange addiction at this point, tbh. Or seeking other professional insight)

Here's some of the doodles in question! I am not terribly good at finishing art of him, I just sketch him loosely and rotate him rapidly in my head

I just think he's so neat. And I think his stupid, codependant, and mildly dysfunctional mafia found-family are so neat. And I think his husband (seraphine) and wife (abram) are so neat. And all his kids, both the legal kids and the ones whom he mostly just pays college tuition for, they're neat to. And the echos of Magnolia throughout his life and the larger narrative, even decades later. That's also very neat (my heart doesn't hurt at all!)

I realize I kinda derailed from answering your original ask because the mafia brainrot is debilitating and chronic, but I'm not entirely sure how I'd go about answering it anyway because there is just. So, so much world and lore to glean from ISFD, and none of it in any easy or direct way. Honestly though? The mafia might not be a bad place to start? If you want, I can tell you as much as I know about the cast and dynamics of the mafia, because I feel like a lot of the mafia character's lore and backgrounds act as a good segway to other noteable aspects of the larger ISFD narratives and the in-world political climate as a whole (Especially Mask and Howard. Not to single those poor souls out, but genuinely. How are they both gonna be so afflicted by the narrative like that)

If you're still interested after I practically talked your ear off, I could totally make a larger post about the whole mafia :3 They're my special blorbos ❤️ I would not feel safe around them IRL, but trapped within the confines of fiction, they're all free for me to babygirlify with almost no consequences

[scatterpatter]

This is a free invitation to infodump about Colorless! Go ham, bestie! I'd love to hear about him!! Pop off, king! /gen /pos

MY FRIEND I AM PICKING YOU UP AND SPINNING YOU AROUND /P

OKAY OKAY SO COLORLESS- mannnn man man i miss him i miss him!!! He's an oc "edgesona" I made back in 2017 and I just missed him! I ramble SO MUCH UNDER THE CUT

Also warning I have OLD ART HERE kjbdfkjbskjfbsjk HELP

Okay so Colorless started as just a spontaneous idea of "Oooo what if Scatter but Evil" waaay back in 2017- think Darkiplier energy

Imma be honest, there's sadly a lot around 2017-2018 that I don't remember, including stuff with Colorless (it's almost like I have the Forget Things Disorder), so going through his older posts is crazy because I don't rember making a lot of this stuff but he was just Evil!Scatter LMAO

Then I convinced Shrike, an ex-friend, and some other mutuals at the time to make their own edgesonas! I frequently did stuff with Shrike's sona Gregory "The Game", or just Gregory Game. Older posts you may also see an "Apathy.txt." but since I'm not in contact with Apathy's owner anymore, I no longer include him in any Colorless content

It was basically just "What if these edgelords lived together and did mayhem"

But then I came up with COLORLESS LORE so here's the rundown of the lore (or at least what I rember... bad memory is bad ;-; )

So it was revealed that C wasn't just some evil alter-ego of Scatter, but rather they were two parts of a fractured whole

Scatter, Colorless, and one other we'll talk about shortly all came from one original person. This person decided to run an experiment to see if he could split himself into different states according to Freudian ego states: Id, Ego, and Superego. The procedure was a success and split the person into Mikhail(Id), Scatter(Ego), and Nathaniel(Superego)

Nat is scratched out. Rip. Scatter was always represented by purple, Mikhail by red, Nat by blue.

Long story short, they decided that they had their time together and needed to fuse back into one person. Mik had his reservations, but Nat and Scatts pushed it. Things went wrong, and they never integrated properly, and even corrupted themselves from it, destabilizing them. I was GOING to give strong hints to this in a comic I was sketching in 2018, but I never finished/posted it. HOWEVER i DO still have the sketchbook so it looked a bit like this! (OOO never before-seen loooore~~~)

It's something C would regularly flashback to and would cause immense distress and generally disrupt his daily functioning

Afterwards all 3 egos shared a body again, but "switched" consciousness frequently, often abruptly and to the detriment of whomever was "fronting" before. Colorless would switch in and take over the body usually to cause harm to Scatter and Nat, or to anons who interacted with him

C would act out in retaliation to get back at both Scatter and Nat, moreso Nat, and during his time corrupted and sharing the body, he took on the name "The Colorless", refusing to go by his real name of Mikhail.

After a few mishaps, he found a way to separate himself from Scatter and Nat! ... It left him a bit... corrupted, still, in the process

It not only left his entire body... not right (see: humans aren't colorless and outlined in red with black tar-like stuff), and also messed up Scatter's and Nat's bodies too

I was GOING to do a whole thing on tumbles where I would've gone into his backstory in depth buuuut that fell through. Oop.

I... admittedly forget a lot of what I was going to do past this. Memory is REAL bad around this time for personal reasons I won't delve into, but C started getting more of a "stabilized" look, though was still able to be VERY evil

WAIT I JUST UNLOCKED A MEMORY TYPING THIS- IIRC, he installed a "chip" in the side of his neck to help stabilize his body- no more corrupted eyes/frame in all-red anymore- and left a scar there he covered with a scarf. Sadly all this part of the lore happened in a server that got nuked BUT I found another never-posted-to-tumblr art in the sketchbook!

These are probably late 2018? VERY early 2019 at the latest?

Thanks to personal life things, C took a back seat for some time, but around 2019-2020 I gave him a semi-revival, and Shrike and I really had fun revisiting C and Greg's whole dynamic together!

Oh also there's another one of the "trio" whose name is Scoot Scoot. I am not joking. They call him Scoot or Scooter for short. He isn't one of the system's ego states- instead, he's a literal demon that looks like the other three. The lore for this was that the person who summoned the demon needed the hair of a human- and stole some from C because the summoner didn't want to use their own in case it went awry. Scoot was summoned and took a similar appearance to C and just... just... is chaos incarnate

SO around 2020ish, I took a pretty hard reboot on C and the egos- it's basically all the same lore, just with a fresh coat of paint... oh also we ship C and Game now. Their ship name is Colorgames.

During this time C decided to go a lot more tame, he didn't want to be a killer anymore, he wanted to be an edgy scientist. He also began patching things up with his brothers so now they're having a decent relationship! ... C also has a portal device attached to his wrist now soooooo... oops

I don't really know what I wanna do with him in the year of our lord and savior 2024, but it's just SO FUN to draw him again!!! Maybe I'll actually make a proper comic about his backstory, who knows!!! I just think he's neat

TL;DR: Colorless (Or "C", real name Mikhail) is one of three parts who consider themselves brothers. He is the Id, Scatter is the Ego, Nat is the Superego. A past event split them apart and they corrupted their bodies trying to put themselves back together. C grew resentful of the others and worked to sabotage them and lash out at them, but now has mellowed and is more of a chaotic scientist than a true villain. He dates @shrike-nest's OC Gregory Game, and they get into mayhem together. They adopted a demon along the way. His name is Scoot Scoot. Don't worry about it.

BONUS: SOME OTHER DOODLES I'VE FOUND IN MY SKETCHBOOK AND DISCORD HISTORY THAT I DONT BELIEVE EVER MADE IT TO TUMBLR:

... id post more that i found but i hit the tumblr image limit OOPS

[sealovinq]

XELLE OMG HI its been way too long 😭😭 idk if u rmbr me .. previously @/recordplayershipping (scout) !!! i saw u as i was clearin out my discord friends list recently n i wanted to come see how u were doing 🥺 i hope schools going well!!! also take this as a free pass to introduce me to the f/o ur fixated most on rn!!!!!!! <3

HELLO HELLOO!!!! AAAAAAA SCOUT I MISSED YOU SM!!! of course i remember you omg you're literally one of my fav moots /gen i'm sorry if this took too long WAAA i didn't know which f/o to talk about.... and yes i've been SUPER busy with school and it's starting again in a few days so 😭 BUT TYSM FOR STOPPING BY, I HOPE YOU'RE DOING WELL TOO<3333!!!

it's actually been a while since i got a new f/o... but i started rewatching m.lp (my lit.tle pon.y) and am currently around season 5 and erm... ya girl got a crush on one of the main 6 GGRGRBRHRJFJ she reminds me of my partner irl so WIWIWIEIJEJ HAHA NOT SURPRISING....

in reference to that previous post of mine i was actually referring to appl.ejack 🙈🙈 LOOK who doesn't like a masculine woman (mare in this case) who can carry me without breaking a sweat amiright WEEEHEHHEJD.... and the human version (NOT E.QG) fanarts of her DID NOT HELP because they all drew her with a muscular body and i am literally!!! so weak for that!!! HELLO!!! SAVE A HORSE RIDE A COWGIRL 💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

i've made a ponysona too UABAYUSBDHDJ i haven't drawn her with aj as of yet because i suck at drawing ponies 😭 and i haven't made much lore about them either but i just like thinking about them hehehehehe

here she is!! my precious lil gem!! i based her off of the color palette of the beach hehe classic ocean-loving me. she's besties with ra.rity and would often come to her for advice about what to do with aj (pre-dating). again i haven't developed her but she's very Pretty and i love her so so so much. i would love to see her getting introduced to farm life by aj even though she's a bit icky about dirt but she'd do anything for the Girlfriend!!!

speaking of ra.rity i actually kin her! so it doesn't bother me when i see ra.rijack or any other ships involving aj tbh. BUT HELL when i do see ra.rijack I GET SO HYPED BECAUSE WE ARE SO CANON<333!! yes she is holding my waist and kissing me on the mouth yes that is me with the curly purple hair ehe

idk i just love aj a lot 🥺🥺🤧 i love especially how she's so blunt sometimes UABSHDIJD and she's so hardworking and does everything for her friends and such a sweetheart eeuuuuuuehhhh.... i wanna smooch her so badly and make her flustered AWAWWAEAEEEEEE

also i've re-explored my gender and decided i am more of genderfae (basically a gender that fluctuates to any gender except masculine ones, for example i can be feminine or neutral any time but never masculine ones) and have developed an attraction to mascs which aj perfectly fits into... aha <33

i don't think i'd be shipping with her e.qg version. they're canonically high schoolers and usually range around 16-18 but it's not confirmed so it's still kinda weird so i'm sticking to her pony version! og is always the best anyway 😍😍🙏

look at Her and her Handsome Face

SHE!!! 🥺🥺🥺🥺🧡🧡🧡🧡

[hotdyke-hardstyle]

I played HI3 when it first came out and then genshin and now HSR and if it's okay, I'd like to rank them a litte, because I have SO many feelings right now.

HI3 is literally the baby, she isn't the firstborn but she is and will forever be the most iconic. It's like a whole saga about love and lesbians and the power that those two things can accomplish. HI3 has some not so great lore in the earlier days--especially when hoyo was really just trying to get out there, and some of their writing decisions don't sit well with me, but HI3 is very clearly a heavy labor of love for the company and with how part 1 ends, you feel some level of closure--which is very rare for these types of games.

I would rank HI3's story a solid 9/10, graphics are 8.9/10 and gameplay is a 5/10(My phone is small and my thumbs are clumsy 😭 it was a challenge)

Genshin. Is certainly there.

In the spirit of fairness, I will say that genshin allowed more people to get into Honkai Impact. On the other hand, genshin's initial release and a year or two after were its strongest, but that game is incredibly boring. While it does look pretty, everything feels empty and unappealing. Paimon is a huge deterrent as she is speaking for you essentially, and it drags the game into a repetitive and annoying sandbox.

This is 100% subjective and is based on my personal feelings, obvi, but my word, I just can't imagine playing genshin again.

I'd give the graphics an 7.9/10. Very pretty but the size of the world is not working in their favor. Story is a 2/10. A very strong opening but QUICKLY falls off and struggles to pick back up. Gameplay 3/10. Again, the game feels incredibly repetitive without any real reward. It's a time sink and the only reason to come back is either because you've already put x amount of hours in or because your favorite character might be in the newest update. Sorry for being a mean lesbian but none of the genshin characters are interesting or appealing enough to be heavily invested in it.

And the newest baby, Star Rail.

NO SPOILERS

Just initial thoughts. Very very fun, influenced by how new it is, but the way it's introduced feels a lot like Honkai Impact 3rd, which I love. Since this is a Honkai game i feel like im more likely to enjoy it and that's due to familiar faces and setting.

Story 8/10 I really like it but I haven't gotten very far. Graphics 9/10. It's a Honkai game, I will say that my laptop had some performance issues with some scenes which is a little sad but I can live with playing on a lower setting. Gameplay 10/10 I LOVE IT SO MUCH LIKE TURN BASED GAMES ARE SO MUCH FUN AND HSR DOES SUCH A GOOD JOB HERE LIKE I LITERALLY DO NOT CARE HOW LONG I SPEND PLAYING THIS GAME BECAUSE THE COMBAT FEELS SO FAIR FUN AND BALANCED IT'S AMAZING.

HI3 has an captain mc who does not exist like they functionally are not real outside of the login screen.

Genshin has an MC but your personality, voice, and thoughts are all dictated by other people and you have little to no real input or say in the game. I HATE games that do that they are so boring. Paimon might as well be the MC for how little you do outside of slashing and climbing.

Star Rails MCs have a bigger air of mystery than Gen's and have more personality as well. Your companions don't speak for you, and MC has voice acting. Games like these typically tend to make the MC loved by all (which is another one of Genshin's problems) but in HSR you can at least understand why people might want to hang around the MC.

All in all, I feel like HSR is the game that deserves to follow the success of HI3. It's real fun and more focused. I enjoy the characters I met and the gameplay is absolutely steller.

Hope you have fun once you get to play!

anon. ANON. I love this so much! also same hat! i've also played hi3, genshin and star rail from release!

I totally agree about hi3 being a labour of love and about it giving a level of closure that I didn't particularly expect. I also agree that it begins quite confused because it was supposed to be a ggz sequel and then it wasn't and then they brought some lore over from ggz but also retconned some stuff... hi3 hasn't always been pretty lore-wise but overall I am super happy with it <3 I know what you mean about playing it on mobile though, once I got a laptop that could handle the game I had a lot more fun lol

I also agree with your thoughts about genshin - it's super pretty, it had a strong start and I genuinely enjoyed the story at the beginning, but I have also dropped off and may only return if there are big story developments. I agree that it's stunted by the mc being silent or a self-insert character, for me I would prefer to play as an actual character with established lore and opinions etc. there's also not enough lesbianism for me and I haven't been really grasped by a character besides with aesthetics? whereas i'm super interested in the lore of pretty much all of the honkai cast.

I also much prefer the way that hi3 deals with story progression and the character development of the cast through new battlesuits. I think I saw someone mention this somewhere but you can literally see bronya, for instance, age from 14 at the beginning of the story into a fully-grown adult by apho part 2. I think sticking with a consistent and slightly smaller cast allows them to really develop the characters in a way they can't do as well in genshin. I think the idea that you meet a new batch of characters for each nation is a good one, and it's really nice to play events and see older characters again, but it doesn't allow for the same level of detail that hi3 loves to dump on people.

thank you for no spoilers on the star rail part too! I will be opening it right after answering this~ super excited by how much you seem to like it because that's probably a sign that I will also like it 👀 I was kinda put off when I saw the mcs for star rail, but hopefully they're like you said and have more of a functional role in the story overall!

I really liked reading this ask it was very fun and we have a lot of the same opinions! i'm glad you like star rail so far and I endorse your rankings as absolutely correct with no flaws 😇

[suntails]

AAA OMG thank you so much for answering my question! ok ok ok so! first up for the fic desires, right out of the gate - I don't like smut (as a sex-repulsed asexual I find reading about it not fun). also I don't like reading whump that much unless it has a good ending. as for not wanted ships, anything is fine unless it's incest or pedophilia. characters/interactions are a bit harder to pin down, but I know I don't want any fics that involve self-inserts, y/n, or ocs as the main focus, I'd much rather be distanced from the story being told than directly involved in it, if that makes sense? I'd like to read something involving Idia or Ortho or any of the Hades dorm (idk its in-universe name) characters - there doesn't seem to be a lot involving them, at least not that I've found yet. stuff involving the octotrio would also be good, love me some angsty merboys. maybe some stuff with Riddle and the other Heartslybule (idk if that's how it's spelled) students too? if you have any fics involving transformation or body-swapping, those are tropes I really like (I'm reasonably sure that at least some of the Diasomnia students have dragon or half-dragon forms but so far I haven't found anything involving them actually transforming?) In addition, what fics involving the Diasomnia students do you think are the best? (since you are the resident expert in that field, 90% is impressive.) thank you again for answering my ask so enthusiastically, I'm sure you'll be a great help. :)

okay cool beans, ty ty!!! hmm i am,,, unfortunately just abt the worst person you could come to for ignihyde or octavinelle stuff, i so rarely click anything from those dorms. regardless, ill give a list of stuff below!! i will add a little description to give u a feel and if it's something u don't vibe with or a ship u don't wanna read, j skip and try something else, hopefully something here will work for u!

And You Think, "No Escape" (ongoing) GEN – i'm a few chapters behind on this one bc life kicked me, but very good gen fic thus far! mainly focused around the previous overblotters in a weird sidequest treasure hunt forced by some bad guys, with trey and cater in the BG tryna help their situation. VERY long chapters and updates very regularly, so would likely provide a good amount of content

Night Raven Kindergarten (ongoing) GEN – cater is the main char, but he and trey are kindergarten teachers for a selection of the cast as kids!! VERY cute and fun, and delves into the kids' lives at home in rly heartfelt ways that hit, the problems feel nuanced and well-written, and the chars all feel so themselves. whitenoface is the author and i like a lot of their work, i'm recing another work from them later on

Briar Scion (ongoing) Idiasil – p long idiasil fic where the story itself is rly what caught my attention, and now im along for the ride. the premise is rly interesting where essentially like,,, nature itself loves silver, and wants to marry him? so nature is encroaching on school turf while interpersonal romance happens around the plot, its a fun concept! yuu is in it in the bg a bit but its not like,, self-insert or OC, so hopefully u won't mind. updates regularly!

when we don't have the words, chocolate can speak volumes (completed) Idiasil – cute, 30k or so idiasil!! largely focuses on the second years as a group working at the mostro lounge, as silver asks for advice from them respectively and idia works up the nerve in the bg to come in to say hi to silver. mostly just a cute silly story, not as intricate a plot but a fun read!

The Queen's Court (completed) Catervil – first of all, azurith is a FANTASTIC writer, and i highly recommend literally anything they've ever written. this rec branches beyond this fic, but this was my start. this covers cater interning for maleficient herself, and then delves into his newfound connection to the draconias while covering fae history and previous war, etc, it's FANTASTIC and this lore is upheld in a lot of their other work. "Enchanted" is another ongoing work by azurith with cater as a diasomnia student, updates regularly and is very good!! azurith is largely a catervil writer but i think their work is far more important than a preference for ship, i'd rec even if u don't care abt catervil

Snow Is Falling (completed) Cater-focused – idk if u can tell but i like cater interacting w diasomnia content, this is where he goes to briar valley for winter break instead of back home! around 15k, just focuses on his interactions with the diasomnia people while staying with lilia and silver, p short and sweet but v nice :D

devoted malediction (orphaned) malledeuce – of all the fics on this list, this is the one ur most likely to skip. i found this on a WHIM while scouring every existing diasomnia ship tag and was so stunned at the audacity of someone to ship malleus and DEUCE, and to write 140k+ words abt it, that i had to read it. i can't explain it with words,,, the writing style reads so differently than anything else i've ever read, it reads as a STYLE rather than simply reading as 'well-written,' it rly kept my attention. essentially, it's a ...human? au? they're coworkers at a game dev studio, they're human but there's still magic, i can't explain it. there's underground plot-shit with the magic factions or whatever that's so interesting, but it IS orphaned so it'll never update again. i'm devastated. i can't sell this fic to anyone bc of the ship and the length but i enjoyed it very deeply and i'll miss it

Fath-- I mean, Lilia (completed) lilia & silver – ALSO by whitenoface, very sweet familial content of them through silver's life. a 10k must-read for a diasomnia fan

Even a Vanrouge Must Rest (completed) lilia & silver – VERY short and VERY sad but i am legally obligated to rec this. i'd be a bad diasomnia fan if i didn't, very heartbreaking and touching story

Crocodile Teeth (completed) Silsebe – sebek overblot story, decent length and p well written, sebek is infuriating which is Correct for sebek and Correct for someone on their way to an overblot. i've read most of magicalfish's work but i can't rec most to u due to nsfw, this is one of the better silsebe fics out there!!!

Just Out of Reach (ongoing) Silsebe – it DOES update, just not on a regular basis. VERY VERY good fic that FEELS slow-burn, it's 50k+ so far and still feels like the build is just starting up well now. essentially, silver and sebek get in a big fight and lilia magically makes them stay side-by-side till they understand each other, so it analyzes how despite their closeness in their upbringings and how they are partners in their roles as malleus's knights, they don't rly get each other yet and need to cultivate their relationship so it doesn't crumble. very nice story thus far and i look forward to updates!!

WHOOOOKAY that's a lot, i actually don't rly use bookmarks bc i'm typically on incognito on my phone, so i may be missing some, but these came to mind based on ur asks!! if u wanted more for ignihyde, octavinelle, or heartslabyul, i'd rec asking someone else bc i'm truly not the best source ^^;

[gaylordsmansion]

The guy behind @athena-appreciation-page here, how ya goin'

Figured I'd ask since you're the Simon Blackquill expert & are currently rotating an AA Pokemon AU in your head to my knowledge, because I desperately need to know for a bunch of teams I'm writing out for myself...

is this bugger Simon-core or nah?

They've got the hair and glare for it, with plenty of cutting moves and a Dark typing. I need a replacement for Kartana on teams where he isn't out for blood and this stuck out to me as a potential candidate. No pressure! Just a thought I had.

~Helgi

I would say "probably". Funny enough, I was thinking about this guy the other day, myself. I really like the wind theming for Shiftry, especially given that they're not flying-type. There are also a lot of really good picks in general, some of which you might prefer to this one, it just really depends on the context of the AU, you know? Like if it took place in Hoenn, I think Shiftry is a much better pick than if it took place in Sinnoh.

Since I'm not privy to the full context [or if traditional regions are being used at all], and since it took me all day to get around to answering this anyway, I thought I'd slap together some choices from each region, making sure to include a starter.

Therefore this is gonna be a long post

Honestly, the starter could go any way & I think it could work. I also think Pidgeot in place of Fearow is okay, but I am a big Fearow stan, so use that one.

Another gen where the starter could go any way & I think it would work. But I chose the one that shows up in Hisui. Murkrow and Sneasel were partially chosen here because Gen 4 is so full of good mons that I picked their pre-evos instead.

Look who made it! I don't feel like I need to elaborate, honestly. Though one could make a case for Flygon or Salamence, the actual Gen 3 mon that almost made it was Gardevoir. But you and I both know that's an Athena mon.

Also, while I'm trying hard to avoid too much personal bias, I can't help it with this gen. I won't be hearing arguements against Absol's inclusion.

This was the easiest one. Because I chose the pre-evolutions for Weavile and Honchkrow previously. LMAO

This is a big region, so there are plenty of other decent options. I just think the ones I chose are cooler Pokémon. Nobody cares about Unfezant, Bisharp is cooler. Nobody cares about Swanna, Zoroark is cooler.

For a small dex, I was presented with a challenge. Then I looked at the starters and said "all of these suck, I'm not picking any of them." Besides, Yveltal is infinitely more badass than any of those starters, so maybe he just started with Yveltal. Then I remembered Hawlucha isn't a bird, so I told myself to avoid that one, too. This is what I ended up with.

Yes, I did just imply Malamar is cooler than Greninja. Because it's true.

As much as I adore Alola and Gen 7, I was shocked when I found this to be the hardest one yet, aside from the starter. I felt obligated to pick The Bird at this point, though I'm not sure I feel Toucannon is a great pick overall. I want to consider Golisopod, though I don't really want to pick the main mon of a prominent character in story. Also, since Oricorio can change formes easily enough, I don't think forme matters too much.

Even easier than gen 4. As it should be, given that the region's dex is just as painfully British as Simon himself is. Why isn't Swanna in Galar, though? I'd have chosen it here.

Hisui may have a small amount of additions, but there was enough for me to work with. I think Arcanine could work, too, given that the species has "guardian" lore & speed theming. Note: Samurott is probably on par with Decidueye for appropriateness.

AND FINALLY. THE BIRD REGION.

If you wanted it to be all birds, Ceruledge can be swapped for Kilowattrel, but nothing about that mon seems particularly Simon to me other than "its a burd lol". Ceruledge on the other hand IS SORD. Also, the honourable mention goes to the lazy-ass Kingambit.

Feel free to pick & choose from things I mentioned here if you want, lol, I just wanted to have fun making this tbh and I did

[littlecarnet]

I love how Pokemon Scarlet/Violet has a rotom camera feature, with a selfie option and filters, even your leading pokemon gets to pose with you! There's so many scenic places in the game just begging to be photographed, like I'm not kidding, the towns have so much attention to detail in them, they look like livable places and it makes you want to explore every little corner of them (which can award you with items). The npcs are...meh, very one dimensional but that's fine, the series has always been more about exploration than dialog.

There's three paths to take in-game but it never pushes you down any of them. You're kinda just left to do whatever, which I love. I've been really taking my time just making picnics with my pokemon complete with cooking, snapping photos, and taking classes at the academy. The picnic thing is super unnecessary but cute, and if I had to add any other unnecessary things to the game it would be a journaling option so I could put my photos in it, keep a scrapbook of my adventure, and make some observational notes about certain places or pokemon. Maybe I can do that on my tablet since my Switch can send photos to it.

One neat thing I found out is that the Switch can send photos to an Instax printer, and yes...I did print out real Polaroids of the photos you see here. They're adorable and the one with my character and Haunter is in my wallet now. Fun fact, Haunter is my favorite pokemon and has been part of my winning teams since Gen 1. They're all named after the original Circe from my copy of Red.

If I had to add anything else I'd love to see:

- The ability to grow berries and herbs in the school campus garden

- Have a rematch with the titans and Team Star bosses

- To be able to decorate your dorm room

- To fish, just like in previous gens

I haven't played through the whole game, I'm barely through the fourth gym - again, just taking my time- so I dont know what sort of other features I'm missing yet. I don't want any spoilers though. I made a huge mistake spoiling PLA for myself and I wish I hadn't, but not with this game. I'm avoiding every spoiler so I can experience it as intended.

Let's see, other things I like so far...

- I caught a Ditto and named it Cici. Im not sorry.

- I'm glad the evil team has real motivations for being the way they are. They're not trying to rule the world, they're just sick of the status quo. I don't support their method but I do support their message. I think they could've handled it differently though. Also their rides are incredible. Pokemon that are super modified semi-trucks! Man I need that in my life! I want a super semi-truck pokemon!

- Nemona kinda gives me bad vibes so far. Maybe my view will change of her as I get further in but for now she reminds me too much of an ex-friend that was super clingy, pushy, and liked invalidating my choices under the guise ' I know what's best for you'. That's why I chose to do the opposite of what she was suggesting. It was my way of saying ' Girl, don't tell me what to do with my life'. This is MY treasure hunt, not yours.

- So far in my play through, I think Arven is a green witch or at least the equivalent of one within that universe. Dude deals with ancient books, mysterious crystals, and magical herbs. He's into alternate medicine and I can totally support that. Also he doesn't boss me around and actually tells me to be careful. Oh and he makes me sandwiches like a sweetheart. I just hope he's not another Volo though, because I swear to Arceus I will drop-kick him into a volcano.

- I'm pretty sure Ms Raifort is a descendant of Professor Laventon and by extension is distantly related to Chairman Rose and Peony( at least in my theory). Laventon's photo is on her wall. I love references like this, builds up on the lore.

- And don't know what people are talking about with glitches, I've played this game since Jan 2nd, and I've yet to run into any glitching, maybe a bit of lag while running around, but yeah, maybe Im lucky? The only noticeable glitch I ran into was when I threw a pokeball at a Tauros above me to start a battle, this warped me from a bottom level of a cliff to the top. Effectively allowing me to skip to an area in the game I wasn't supposed to go to yet.

Sadly this meant a lot of pokemon in that area were higher level than mine and I nearly got wiped out before heading to a pokecenter. But! This did mean I got to use the pokecenter as a save spot that I could come back to when I leveled up. A funny yet helpful glitch.