#just nihilego talking through him but it’s not guzma saying any of that

[soni-dragon]

tw for eyes below cut

“wanna see what destruction looks like?” but 100x scarier

[spyres]

Sending my evil influence to give you the floor to say why you hate USUM

okay so i do want to give a disclaimer that i haven't beaten either sm or usum since they released. i feel like my memory on them is still good enough to say my piece but just keep in mind that i may be wrong about some details and i can own up to that if i am.

since we're talking about sm and usum cw for parental abuse towards children

okay i will say upfront that i do think in terms of gameplay i fully admit that usum is superior. a lot of the stuff it added doesn't really apply to me (i only use pokemon that were introduced in that generation so usum's expanded pokedex is for the most part meaningless to me, and it kinda annoyed me how i was forced to play mantine surf to get to akala when i just wanted to get there immediately). the options are still nice to have, they just didn't add much to my personal experience, which is why i'm mostly coming at this from a story perspective. the ultra wormhole stuff was fucking awesome though i loved that.

so: sm. while i wouldn't say its depiction of abuse was perfect (lusamine was forgiven way too easily imo) i still appreciate the way it came at it. the nihilego poison was a reason behind lusamine's actions, but it didn't excuse them. lillie still got to give her amazing speech to her mother about how children aren't just dolls and gladion is a little more on the fence about it iirc, so there were at least still some repercussions for lusamine in that regard. it's a story that hit very hard at the time of release because while my mom isn't abusive, our relationship was very rocky when i was 16, so sm was very cathartic for me. i'd imagine it'd still resonate deeply with me to this day if i were to replay it even though our relationship has improved since then.

so the tldr of that is that sm had a slightly flawed but still brilliant portrayal of familial abuse that blended in very well with the overall theme of different family dynamics (also shown through guzma/team skull in general, hau and his grandfather, etc.)

so usum just completely shat all over that with how they handled the aether family.

it's like genuinely pretty offensive to me with how lusamine's abuse was portrayed here. she's not under any sort of influence because of nihilego here, she's just naturally very nasty and cruel to her children. lillie doesn't get to give her her speech and gladion literally says something along the lines of "she's not so bad because she's our mother." LIKE WHAT!!!!!! you take away the understandable (but not justifiable) reasoning as to why she was cruel in sm so that she's just always horrible and then take away the few repercussions she faces to have her be excused entirely??? this just feels like abuse apologism. it leaves such an icky taste in my mouth. and derailing into the anime for a quick second here, that also had a weird portrayal of lusamine too. i wouldn't say it was as bad as it is in usum, since it did ultimately stick closer to sm, but it was just sort of weird with them making lusamine's main issue be that she's just sort of overbearing and making faba into the real villain (who also gets let off with a slap on the wrist despite being responsible for the trauma lillie held on to for years).

like that's the main reason why i can't go back to usum over sm. i just feel gross playing it.

and to be fair, this game did do guzma and hau better in terms of writing, but why did it have to portray the aether family in that way as well. i don't even really remember what they did with hau aside from making him the final battle (and tbh i felt like kukui was still a better final boss. i like hau, but the "rival as a champion" thing was done much more effectively in the kanto games imo.)

also rainbow rocket was dumb and cringe and i never even bothered finishing it. to this day (aside from bdsp because i didn't play that) it's the only postgame pokemon story i haven't beaten. i tolerated fucking sordward and sheilbert but not this. also i heard that ghetsis physically shoves lillie to the ground in his section and i genuinely need him to die for it. and worst of all they took hot archie away from us 😔

like i won't deny that usum added a lot of neat features and sidequests that made alola feel more alive (and i already loved alola in sm) but i cannot for the life of me get past how gross the story makes me feel.

[artgurusauce]

Oh hey what’s this an AU without Haudion in it? What sorcery is this, Saucy?

Yes yes, another AU spreadsheet. Twist this time: The prompt ain’t for shipping. I’ve been playing with this specific idea in my head for a while now and after rewatching an old playthrough of God of War 4, I got a tad inspired.

Without further ado, let us begin.

Context: As you can probably already tell, the prompt here was “What if Gladion was much younger when he joined Team Skull?” The question of how young I’m afraid I can’t put into precise numbers buuut, about the age he was in the anime when Lillie was attacked by that Nihilego. I’m assuming he was around 7 at that time but that’s just an estimate. Anyways, he runs away from home after stealing a Pokeball containing a Type:Null from his mother. Unfortunately, he grabbed a rather aggressive Type:Null that is poorly trained. It doesn’t kill him, but it often lashed out at Gladion and attacks him, scratching and headbutting him. One day, in the pouring rain, Guzma finds this crying boy sniveling and covered in all manner of bruises and cuts. Taking pity upon him, he decides to take him in.

1.) New Clothes

Since Gladion’s old clothes while expensive and cozy were absolutely ruined, they had to be replaced. Not only were they soaked, but they were terribly scratched up and beyond repair thanks to Null. Luckily, one of the grunts happens to be an expert in sewing clothes and makes up just the cutest little getup for him. However, she makes the sleeves just a tad too long. Guzma also gives Gladion an old pair of sneakers he used to wear when he was about his age.

2.) Roughhousing

Gladion, even as an older more mature boy is quite the emotional one. Often times he’ll lash out quite easily and it’s not hard to get under his skin. Imagine if you were to upset an even younger Gladion with far less experience, poise and who’s freshly emotionally damaged by his mother’s neglectful behavior, not to mention his frustration with trying to train Type:Null. So it’s not hard to imagine that Gladion still wouldn’t get along with the grunts. In fact, they pick on him even more since he’s so tiny and pathetic and gets far more attention from Guzma seeing as he’s the youngest one and needs more care. Usually it would lead to a grunt stepping out of line, saying something like, “Why don’t you go back home cryin’ to your daddy?” or “I’ll bet your ugly little pet would make a better jacket than a Pokemon.” This would obviously lead little Glad to attempt to beat up the older kids, biting and scratching and kicking them. And of course, Guzma would have to break it up and drag Gladion off to give him a stern talking-to, man to boy. Just what on Earth was Guzma going to do about all this pent up aggression he had?

3.) The Little Moments

Of course eventually after a while it should come as no surprise: The little brat is startin’ to grow on big ol’ bad Guzma. Even for the spoiled rotten, picky, ungrateful rugmuncher he can be sometimes, he’s not quite that bad of a kid. After all, Guzma actually somewhat admires his spunk. It’s not hard for him to see himself in this kid. He knew how scary it was being away from home at such a young age, and especially with such a goliath under his belt with no experience what-so-ever. This illustration is one of a few wholesome little instances you could probably imagine. Poor little Glad got tired from training and fell asleep while listening to one of Guzma’s post-battle lectures. It’s almost kind of cute.

4.) Motherly Advice

Oh but of course, Guzma isn’t the boy’s only parental figure. Plumeria, more docile and passive aggressive in nature is sure to give little Glad any advice he needs. While it is important he learns to toughen up, he’s not a brick wall. She’s there to talk to him whenever he needs it. While at first he’s not privy to talking to her as putting up with Guzma is enough of a challenge in and of itself, eventually, he warms up to her offers to listen when the grunts’ verbal jabs begin to wear down his self-confidence. She also is prone to helping Gladion understand Guzma’s rules and why he’s so hard on the poor little fella. They weren’t so different, even if it didn’t seem that way. “Might be tough for you to believe it, but everybody here has had it rough, even me.” Gladion definitely takes all her advice to heart, frankly just appreciating that someone would just talk to him like...a mother would.

5.) Tough Love

And now we get right back to Gladion’s biggest conundrum: Type:Null. I headcanon pretty much in any AU that there are 3 Type:Nulls in existence: A docile one, an aggressive one, and a pack leader. Gladion this time around ends up taking the aggressive one, not knowing the difference between the Beast Killers. While under Guzma’s wing, Type:Null and Gladion both endure intense and rough training that while unconventional is actually quite necessary. Guzma knows how to handle a bulky mass of rage after all. So first thing’s first, he uses his Golisopod to battle Type:Null in order to help it get out all that pent up aggression and channel it in a productive manner. The more it associated it’s power and ability with Pokemon battle rather than throwing temper tantrums, the better. Golisopod is more than happy to help, which creates a tense rivalry between the two. Often times they will even spar without either of their Trainer’s request. In a similar fashion that Guzma is a mentor to Gladion, Golisopod becomes somewhat of a mentor to Type:Null. Then of course, there’s the trust-building lessons to help Gladion and Type:Null establish a Trainer-Pokemon relationship rather than a Master-Prisoner mentality. It doesn’t quite understand that Gladion is it’s ally, it only knows that it is free from the tazing devices and cold, claustrophobic cages that prevented it from ripping anyone that crossed it to shreds. It had to understand that the boy was it’s friend, not it’s foe. Leading that, Gladion himself would learn how to battle using his Pokemon. A process that requires surprisingly a lot more paper than hands-on studying. After all, he has to memorize all the moves and rules if he’s to become a proper Trainer for that powerhouse.

6.) Am I Supposed To Apologize?

After a long, long, looonnnggg time of building trust and coming to see Guzma like a second father, Gladion finally spills the beans about his mother’s cruelty and his father’s tragic death. Surprisingly, rather than Plumeria, it is Guzma he confides in. He breaks down, confessing every little horrific detail. How his father died in a horrible research accident. How his mother shut them out emotionally after the funeral. How she forced him and his sister to dress perfectly proper in almost all white. How she ridiculed and belittled and shamed them just to make them complicit. How she locked him and Lillie in their rooms for hours on end for simply wearing the wrong shoes. How she took away their Pokemon, saying they weren’t worthy enough children to be Trainers. How she began to pretend as if Gladion didn’t even exist anymore and gave all the attention to his sister just to spite him. All they were to her were ugly, useless children. She didn’t love them anymore, and they didn’t understand. He didn’t understand. He didn’t know what to do. All he wanted to do was run away. But he also wanted to piss her off, give her something to really be upset about. At least then she would give him attention. At least then she would acknowledge him, wouldn’t she? She had to! But she hadn’t even bothered to look for him, she didn’t care about him. She never would. Why did she act like this? Did he do something wrong? Was he supposed to apologize? Why did she hate him so much? Guzma is obviously taken aback by all this and takes pity on the poor boy again, letting him cry out all of his frustrations and woes. Nothing is more painful for Guzma than hearing the things some of these kids he takes in have gone through, but coming from the mouth of someone so young, it also boils his blood. Lusamine will surely regret what she has wrought upon this boy...

7.) Po Town Raid

So I came up with an interesting plot idea, perhaps a sort of climax to this story. Team Skull is still very much a group of criminals. They steal, vandalize, and sometimes even shake down young Trial-Goers who were unfortunate enough to run into one of Guzma’s lackeys. Up to now, nobody really knew where they were hiding out. However, the police somehow found a lead, and raid the entirety of Po Town to arrest and detain everyone. Guzma knows there’s not enough time to save everyone, and decides to make a split second decision as the police come dangerously close to knocking down the door to the mansion. He calls out his Golisopod, ordering Gladion to hide under him and not to come out no matter what he hears. Of course, Gladion is terrified and objects to this, but Guzma manages to convince him that he can handle himself. Begrudgingly, Gladion hides in Golisopod’s grip as it curls up into a ball, shuffling itself under some floor boards beneath a rug on the floor. With bated breath and tears trickling down his face, Gladion is forced to listen quietly as his father figure is arrested and escorted out of the building, insisting there’s no one else left to detain. Golisopod is just as saddened as the boy, hesitant to sit back while it’s Trainer is being hauled off, but obedient enough to keep the boy safe as ordered. After a few hours of complete silence, Gladion and Golisopod finally emerge from their hiding spot, wrought with grief and panic to find Po Town was completely empty and devoid of any other humans or even Pokemon. Everyone was gone.

Sooo another plot twist, I may consider actually writing a fic for this one but obviously not right now. Or I could just keep posting about it here, lol. Honestly I really like this one so I’m definitely gonna continue it regardless. But lemme know what y’all think. 

[0poole]

Some Retrospective Thoughts on Gen 7

Galar’s making me go nuts. You already know. Let’s look back on Alola because why not. I feel like I have stuff to say about it. Also, I just watched the last episode of the Alolan Anime, so there’s that.

Whenever I first think back to Gen 7, I think “Eh, it was alright. Nothing special, I guess.” The Pokemon were decent, apart from being almost universally slow, apart from like 3 speed demons, the starters weren’t much, the story was alright, the location was alright, etc. etc. 

Then, I ACTUALLY think back, and I realize… I have no idea why I was thinking that. This generation was actually amazing.

First of all, they finally put the motif of the Sun and Moon into game types. It’s definitely a breath of fresh air after they tried to use the fucking dimensions in 3D space for titles in Gen 6 (Loved that gen too, but seriously “Life” and “Death” would both be more fitting and not as strange. Maybe they don’t want “Death” as a title tho). Really fits in with how naturally themed everything is too, which is obviously for the best, since this is the most “natural” game to date. Even though we technically already had an America-based region in Unova, Hawai’i is so unique in its own right it definitely fits for a region. I’m usually the type who doesn’t like super overt themes in things, and kind of just wants a very generalized experience, but it’s probably for the good of everyone that they don’t actually follow through with that idea. 

Probably the biggest thing to come out of this generation is the new habit of them posting short little videos on Youtube revealing new Pokemon/features/etc. Obviously they were super trigger happy with them then, but now it seems they’ve taken a step back a little. I do love this idea, though, because it actually hypes me up more than anything else ever could. I remember before, even though I was kinda-sorta trying to follow the updates on Gens 4-6, I never really felt like I could, and even though I was going to get the games no matter what, now I realize I really want to know what I’m getting into. 

I remember exactly where I was for some of the major announcements. For the starters, I was in my high school geometry class, where I watched and re-watched that video dozens of times just so I could keep looking at them. I started off on Rowlet’s side of course, but once I realized he was getting all the attention and ol Popplio was getting basically none, I changed my allegiance and stayed there to this day. Ignoring the fact that I don’t really like any of the final evolutions enough to actually use them in game, I LOVE Popplio himself. It’s seriously a shame that he didn’t become some clown seal like everyone was speculating. Unlike how it seems, I really, really like “normal” clown characters (as in, not “horror” clowns), so he could’ve easily become one of my favorites in that case. Decidueye is definitely my favorite of the final forms, and Incineroar I think is still underrated. Sure, whatever, he’s bipedal, and it’s weirder than it otherwise would be, but for some reason I love how his mouth was an actual modeled mouth and not just an image slapped on there like most Pokemon. It really made him more expressive than the average Pokemon. Plus, the animation for Darkest Lariat is really cool, with his hands flashing against a flat back background for a second before actually doing the move. Even better, it’s great meme potential when hacked onto other Pokemon, like Wailord.

I don’t remember if Solgaleo and Lunala were introduced in that first trailer too, but either way I love both of them. I was a bit more drawn to Solgaleo at first, but Lunala has since grown to be one of my favorite legendaries of all. The starry wings, golden rims, and white skeleton-y body are such a great combo. And yeah, sure, Solgaleo would’ve been more fitting as a fire type or whatever, but since stars form the heavy metals that make it onto planets it’s fine. I won’t accept that Lunala should’ve been a dark type, though. The Moon is a major embodiment of light in the night sky, so if anything it shouldn’t be related to darkness. As for Necrozma, I love his base form a lot. It’s such a strange look, especially how the back of his head is transparent. It’s the perfect “evil prism” pokemon. I really just wish Ultra Necrozma had more detail to him, though. He looks so flat for such a major figure in the games… At least he had a good battle and an even BETTER theme song, hot damn

Guess that’s a good transition to talk about the music, and I guess tangentially about Team Skull, since they were probably the best possible departure from the usual “Evil Team” formula. Them just being random hooligans causing trouble instead of a formal organization trying for world domination is a good change of pace, as pretty much everyone agrees… It wouldn’t have been so great if they didn’t at least try to incorporate rap/trap music into their themes. They’re probably the most music-oriented Team canonically speaking, so they’d have to have a great theme. Also, the idea that they feel left behind by the traditions of the Trials really makes sense, since something so important in their culture would definitely make someone feel left out if they couldn’t get through it. 

Other themes for the more calm situations, like Hau’oli City’s night theme, are also extremely good. I didn’t even realize how much I loved that track until I heard Insaneintherain’s cover of it. It almost sounds like something out of Steven Universe, for how pleasant it is (apart from the piano). Lillie’s theme still gives me the warm fuzzies every time I hear it, too. I don’t think a single game before this has ever done the credits so well, too. Apart from the fun artwork, the last shot of Lillie and the game’s legendary actually just kills me every time. She’s such an adorable, pure soul, it’s crazy to think that when she was first revealed, we thought she was the secret supervillain of the game, just because she looked kinda peeved in her official art. We weren’t far off, though, with the Aether Foundation and all. I love both the calm theme of the Paradise itself AND their evil battle theme. Even though one is obviously an evil theme, it does feel like it came from the same source. Same goes for Lusamine’s theme. I really love the Aether Foundation as a whole too, where we can now have “Good” Foundation archetypes to counter the Evil Team archetype. Plus, their designs all involve white with gold accents, which is basically my brand. I tried to design my own Aether outfit the instant I saw them, since I love their look so much. 

As for battle themes, I love how jazzy Galdion’s battle theme ended up. It made him so much more interesting than just a generic edgelord. The Elite Four’s battle theme might actually be the scariest theme to date for some reason, and yet all I can picture when listening to it is Acerola bobbing joyfully back and forth… Basically the same way, the Tapu battle theme is also pretty crazy, with tribal chants in the back of it. The Tapus are probably the coolest group of legendaries in the game, considering how unique they are, with their oddly wooden shells that represent animals. It really makes them feel like spirits brought about by the people of Alola themselves, instead of just some being that came out of nowhere. Probably the one theme that is the most nostalgic (yes, I know it was only 3 years ago, you can still feel nostalgia damnit) for me is the Kahuna battle theme. It was probably just some random comment on Youtube, but somewhere someone said that it was the perfect theme because it starts off intimidating, but quickly switches into a super fun melody, because ultimately, the Island Challenge is for fun. I just love that. I’m always looking for “Fun” stuff in pretty much everything, so I like a theme that represents that. Also, it’s just super catchy, and even expanded upon in Pokemon Masters. Let it be known that Hapu is the best Kahuna by the way. She cute. Also, watching her become the Kahuna is the best world building you could possibly muster up for this kind of setting. 

Of course, I’m intentionally leaving out a certain group…

You know what I think of when I think of Hawai’i? Pearly white sand beaches… Palm trees… Fruity drinks… oh, and let’s not forget fucking interdimensional aliens. 

The Ultra Beasts are the exact type of thing I’d want to insert into the Pokemon world, and that’s why I love them. They’re so weird in the best ways possible. When they were introduced in a trailer, I had the same reaction as I did with Type: Null. They put him up on the screen for a bit and was like “Haha here’s ‘Type: Null,’ okay next” like EXCUSE ME? YOU CAN’T JUST SHOW ME A POKEMON CALLED “Type: Null” AND NOT EXPLAIN WHAT’S GOING ON. Of course, that’s kind of what the games were for, but it was seriously a shock to the system to see Pokemon with code names instead of actual names. You also can’t convince me that Pheromosa wasn’t designed after Lusamine, and to a lesser extent that Xurkitree wasn’t designed after Guzma. I think it’s canon that Lusamine styled Lillie after Nihilego in her crazed state, but the uncanny likeness between those other two is pretty darn notable. I think from the first batch, Celesteela was my favorite of them all, being like a rusted copper rocket ship or something, who can even smack you with her two giant rockets. Also, Pokemon directly based on folktales are always welcome, no matter what. Meanwhile, with the Ultra games being the first sequels to introduce brand-new Pokemon, Blacephalon easily took top spot. I did say I liked clowns, didn’t I? Plus, the biggest evidence that he’s best boi is that in the anime when he appeared, he didn’t even try to attack anything. He just wanted to show off (specifically, believe it or not, by moonwalking… Whoever’s idea that was needs a raise). I also love detachable heads, which is a great idea to mix with clowns, and I guess also fireworks in this case… I just love him. I really hope that there will be future instances of Ultra Beasts, since it’s apparently super easy to just make them however the hell you want them, and since you’re not limited to a region’s natural environment. Lord knows whoever designed Buzzwole didn’t have any limitations. Exploring his, and really all of their worlds in USUM was extremely fun. It’s a damn shame Blacephalon and Stakataka (again, what a name) didn’t get the same privilege. 

As for the Pokemon as a whole, like I mentioned, off the top of my head I don’t feel super crazy about many of them, even though that’s a total lie. Shiinotic appealed to my inner mushroom-character-lover so much that I basically designed a character that looked identical to him. He’s easily the best mushroom Pokemon to date, where he looks pretty cute while also being just slightly creepy enough, with those souless eyes. The concept for Araquanid is amazing, where he’s a reverse Diving Bell spider. I might’ve designed him a bit differently, but he still looks super cool. The ideas behind Oranguru and Passimian are also cool, since we haven’t delved much into intelligent ape Pokemon enough. Wishiwashi is another great concept, and probably the best fish Pokemon in my opinion because of it. Lurantis and Minior are total cuties, the latter being one of those Pokemon that isn’t always in the forefront of my mind, but the instant it is it reclaims its place as one of my all-time favorites. Golisopod and Kommo-o are two of the coolest Pokemon designs to me, the latter being my all-time favorite Pseudo-Legendary. Vikavolt looks awesome, despite being deceptively slow. Dhelmise looks weird until you realize it’s actually insanely large (like, Wailord large). Mudsdale is just an all-around good-looking horse. Oricorio also looks really cool, especially in her fiery form. Tsareena is, well… Tsareena… That’s not even including the adorable Magearna and Marshadow, who are in generational limbo… Also, I think Mimikyu might be the overall best addition to the franchise ever. No Pika-clone could ever compare. 

I mean, specifically as far as a single Pokemon goes, Mimikyu is definitely the best addition to the franchise. Meanwhile, as far as concepts go, the absolutely HUGE idea of Regional Variants is the best addition. Again, I remember where I was when I heard the announcement: it was some sort of weird fantasy house, with a ton of cool details in it to make it look like a setting in some movie or something. It was awesome there, even if we were staying for only a night or so I think. Either way, the concept of different Pokemon adapting to different conditions in the region is the most perfect way to bring attention back to older Pokemon, and I’m so glad they seem to want to keep the idea for all future generations too. It’s especially fitting for Alola, since it’s a super remote island. I love how goofy Alolan Exeggutor is, especially because everyone else seems to love his goofiness too. Same sort of goes for Dugtrio, since his hair is actually based on a real thing… Marowak becoming a spiritual fire dancer is definitely the best possible iteration for him. My favorite might be the colorful Alolan Muk, though, even if Alolan Vulpix is infinitely cuter and better than fiery Vulpix in every way. I cannot be convinced otherwise.

Also, she’s a perfect fit for Lillie, so I guess I’ll use that as my transition into talking about the characters/anime. I’m just gonna be real with you. I’m not going to hold back. Alola has some of the cutest girls in the entire franchise. But first of all, let’s divert that train and instead lust after a man who is easily the hottest professor in the games yet, Kukui. What self-respecting researcher wouldn’t wear his professor-mandated lab coat without any undershirt? He needs his bulging abs as target practice for his Pokemon’s moves, people. He needs to let them breathe. Also, I was kind of enamoured with Sycamore before him, but you can’t deny the tinted skin gets to you a little. Burnet’s a lucky gal, let’s just say.

Okay, now that we’ve established that my pants don’t discriminate, we have to talk about Wicke. So now that that’s covered, can I just say I love Mina? I’d say she deserves more attention, but she was the only Alolan to make it into Lets Go for some reason, so I guess she’s well off? First of all, I love hippie-esque girls (idealized hippies, at least), so that’s a major plus… I mean, I should probably stop using the word “cute” altogether because it applies to every girl in the game, but yeah. Lana’s highly deserved spotlight in the anime made me love her too, where she was a perfect combination of extroverted while still more soft-spoken. I don’t know if that kind of characters’ an anime trope, but lord knows it’s not in western media, so I love how unique her personality is. Her interacting with Mallow and Lillie in cute, girly ways felt so wholesome. If the anime’s anything, it’s wholesome. 

One sec, though. I have to mention that I really like Hau. He’s obviously the one pinned as “Boo, he’s not a giga-asshole! That means he’s bad!” because I guess the fandom’s hive mind has collectively agreed that the only good rivals are assholes now. Like I said before, this stuff’s more about fun now. Hau’s a fun friend to fight, to the point where you beat him as the Champion you kinda feel bad for knocking him down so much. You feel bad because you like him, you know. Also, I forgot to mention this earlier but even though he isn’t entirely difficult himself, the trials in these games are actually both a difficult and interesting challenge. A 2v1 where you’re at the disadvantage is a great boss battle idea, especially with the strategies set out by a Pokemon’s different abilities and moves. Probably the best was Totem Lurantis, who of course summoned a Sunny Day-based Castform to activate her Chlorophyll and buff her Solar Blade, while adding a diverse fire type into play. It was really difficult, to be honest. Those who say it wasn’t either got lucky or have insane standards that cannot be met because they’re Pokemon Veterans who know every little thing about everything. I’m pretty much in that camp, and I still had to actually plan during the fight. Same goes for Totem Araquanid in USUM. I literally had to poison (not toxic, base poison) stall that guy because I couldn’t do anything to him otherwise. He was pretty much one-shotting everything I sent out, anyway, so I had to stall however I could. You can’t argue that that means it was “easy” because I knew how to beat him. It’s only “easy” if you can just send out pretty much whatever and do whatever and still win. Then there’s the Rainbow Rocket episode in USUM, which is just crazy… There’s not much to say that isn’t obvious there. It was fun seeing the villains that were victorious in a different dimension.

Anyways, for the anime, I also have a similar stance. It really seemed like the only people who started off hating it were anime nerds who had no concept of an in-between frame. I will say that it was a step down from XY/XYZ though, but those seasons’ quality was unusually high. Compared to the animation quality of every other season, it was so much better. First of all, I really don’t even like “anime style” that much, so a slightly more western style was very welcome. Like pretty much every show ever, the animation quality is seriously high where it counts, so there’s not much to be said about that, but I’d say the overall animation quality is a step up in general. The more simplified style only really looked weird in Ash because we’re so used to his more pointy style. Every other character looked totally fine, in my opinion. 

As for the story, I will say I would’ve wanted the scope of the plot to be much larger, like how with the other seasons Ash was going on an adventure, whereas here it was very contained, and centered around the Pokemon School. But, still, like I mentioned, I did enjoy the casual wholesomeness of it all. Not only do I just like mindless fun, but it made the crazy shit feel even crazier. The episode where Faba was trying to catch Nebby is a perfect example. It begins with a nice fun game of all the Pokemon and people jumping rope and having a good time, with some slapstick humor with Faba failing to capture Nebby. Then he does, and shit goes down. First of all, he’s torturing the little thing. Then, ASH (not his Pokemon, Ash himself) tackles Faba. Tell me, what other season had humans fighting other humans? I honestly can’t think of a single time when fighting was done with fists and not Pokemon (although surely I’m forgetting something, there’s gotta be at least one other example, right?) Then, Lillie re-experiences her past trauma of almost being abducted by Nihilego, except now her mom gets abducted in her place… Like, what happened? It was so cute a second ago. That’s always the selling point for any cartoon, for me. Stay casual for a decent amount, then break it with some uncharacteristically high tension. The same goes for the segment where Ash goes into Guzzlord’s post apocalyptic dimension. As for mega-feels, It’s great that they made Litten/Torracat an actual character instead of just some random Pokemon, with Stoutland and whatnot. The episode where they go into Tapu Fini’s mist and Mallow meets her mother, and Torracat meets Stoutland just destroyed me. It was strategically remedied by Lillie and Gladion not seeing their father, suggesting he’s still alive. There were some really great episodes in the season, for sure.

So, yeah… Alola was a good time. Don’t deny it. Galar’s gonna be great too. No game’s ever going to be perfect, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be fun.

[zchaotic]

Decent story telling deciphering. Episode 3, Lusamine

Finally, the third member of the Aether Family and the one that has the most different adaptations.

Lusamine; President of the Aether Foundation and the mother of Gladion and Lillie.

Contrary to how the adaptations seem, they kept one big thing about her intact. Being a lousy mother with some messed up priorities.

From Vanilla SM, we have the one most of the fanbase is familiar with... as a terrifying villain and an example of how NOT to write a tragic villain that we want to see have a turnaround.

Let us start with her backstory, that gets better explained in USUM in comparison. She was someone who inherited the Aether Foundation from her father, met a man named Mohn, found love and had two kids.

Lusamine, is someone who is all about giving love to others and being loved back. According to the backstory, she was someone who loved her family that much, but has a fixation on it.

 The desire to love and be loved becomes a key component into her downward spiral when her husband, Mohn, had an accident involving researching an Ultra Wormhole. The man was sucked into a wormhole, never to be seen again and left Lusamine with a member of the family gone, the only things that were left was a Cosmog and notes on Nihilego, the only clue she has in regarding to where Mohn is.

This... as Lillie said to us on Exeggutor Island, was around the point Lusamine changed... for the worse.

Lusamine became fixated on wanting to get Mohn back, to the point of trauma induced madness, where she blindly searched for ways to open the wormhole and look for him.

This resulted in Type:Null being created, a weapon made from several pokemon, to fight against the Beast beyond the wormhole, it came off as a failure and was frozen away. In addition, she started becoming more controlling of her kids due to what happened with Mohn, where she decided everything for them and never let them make their own choices.

She either continued to mess with the wormhole so much that eventually she encountered Nihilego in some way and got high on neurotoxins that turn her into her most warped, extreme self that only cared about Nihilego OR became so focused on researching wormholes to the point of obsession of where only the beasts matter... which makes things very confusing in the games since neither are explained very well.

What we gotten by the time the games plot started, was a woman that was putting on a friendly facade and only had one goal, get the Ultra Beasts. She was willing to manipulate, control and use everyone around her for her schemes, just to reach Nihilego. With no regard to the safety of others and her obsession with the beasts and beauty, lead to really disturbing implications that many... myself included, believed. Like dressing Lillie up as Nihilego, so she would resemble the only thing she cares about, the only thing worth of her “love”.

It gets worse when Lillie got taken to Aether Paradise, when Lusamine verbally tore at Lillie, saying she wasn’t pretty, that Lillie isn’t able to do anything on her own, among other horrid things. We see her with many pokemon that she froze as part of her collection, her screaming at Gladion and Lillie, saying that they stole from her and betrayed her.

Was callous in her treatment of Nebby when she used its power to open many wormholes to bring the Ultra Beasts over, while taunting Lillie over the fact that it might die. Had Guzma... a gang leader, under her thumb and willing to do what ever she says, because she gave praise to him and possible was only taking advantage of him, follow her into Ultra Space, to be with Nihilego.

To be blunt, Lusamine was a grade A cunt!

During you and Lillie’s journey, we were giving some dialogue from the girl that things were not always like this. That Lusamine wasn’t the big uncaring cunt we saw... and that was the only hint as to why we were going into Ultra Space to rescue Lusamine and Guzma.

The Beasts that were let out of Alola were a problem that was swept under the rug and apparently, the big reason Lillie wanted to go into Ultra Space was to tell Lusamine off.

Seemed to make sense after learning that Lusamine ditched Guzma to do her own thing... which resulted in the gang leader latched on by those things for a moment.

Lillie calling Lusamine out only set that crazy woman off into flinging more abusive language at Lillie and letting Nihilego latch onto her. Becoming the Mother Beast and try to kill you and Lillie, Nebby shot at Lusamine in the end, separated the two and all of a sudden Lusamine became nicer and gave Lillie some sweet words before falling into a coma. Lillie instantly forgave her mother for all that, dragged her and Guzma out of Ultra Space and later on, Lillie felt obligated to help Lusamine recover by going to Kanto. With hints that Lusamine still doesn’t know what she did wrong.

In the post game, we learn that Nihilego wasn’t much of a mind control venom, we have no good hints into when, if and how she got infected and then Gladion mentioned the backstory with Mohn. It was the wrong place and the wrong time in the story FOR this information.

Leaving many players to care little about wanting to see this woman recover/ rebuild her relationship with her kids and either A. Want her dead or B. are more concern of the many messed up things she did to her kids. In addition, it is pokemon, Lillie and Bill, WILL find a way to pull that recovery off and Lusamine would have gotten off way too easy despite her crap.

Very sloppy way to end a story and left no closure... despite being an effective villain and an accurate portrayal of an abusive parent.

Gamefreak end up becoming aware of this and in came USUM with its rewrite of her.

A similar if identical backstory came around and it brought more light into Lusamine as a character... and actual character instead of a villain.

Instead of being allowed to pursue Nihilego to the levels it did in SM, she encountered people from another world (The Ultra Recon Squad.) that told her about a pokemon called Necrozma, that would steal the light of Alola and bring about the apocalypse.

We have Lusamine delve into a messiah complex, believing that she is the one to go after Necrozma and protect everyone, despite still being a bitch to her kids.

For many fans, this created a backlash and to them... think it was butchery of her character... when really it isn’t.

This when you bring everything into context, reveals the real reason she was obsessed with the Ultra Wormhole and expand on the Lusamine we knew from the first game.

Lusamine was obsessed with revenge, revenge against Ultra Space and the Ultra Beasts for stealing Mohn away from her. This is the reason why she allowed Type:Full to happen, Faba created it as a way to appease to her, without her knowing and the woman caught wind of it.

So she allowed it to happen/ oversaw it as a way to have a tool of vengeance. But, Type:Full didn’t go accordingly and she had it frozen. This fits perfectly in the woman’s descent into madness, for vengeance is a very strong motivator to terrible things.

Because Lusamine lost Mohn from things that became beyond her control, she vowed to make sure she doesn’t lose anyone else, due to things beyond her control. Which is why she became a control freak to Gladion and Lillie, why she still has all those frozen pokemon, it wasn’t about keeping things beautiful/ because they were play things to her, it was about not wanting to lose those close to her.

Lusamine... still....went.... nuts!

This brings a different light to Lillie’s old look as I mentioned, it’s resemblance to Nihilego was nothing more than a coincidence... Nihilego has nothing to do the metaphor. Instead, the clothes are a metaphor to how overbearing Lusamine is to her kids. “Children would be all much happier if they’d only listen to the adults around them.” A quote from the bitch herself.

She actually thinks that she knows best and everyone who said otherwise are to shut up/ get out of her way. Which helps make things like Nihlego showing up at Aether Paradise through an Ultra Wormhole, make all the more sense despite her goals having nothing to do with Nihilego... why she needed the Cosmog despite the Ultra Recon Squad having another way into Ultra Space. Why did any of that needed to happen despite that.

She wanted to use HER Cosmog, to open a wormhole to Necrozma and go after it, despite the URS planning a more controllable approach. She wanted to channel her frustration out on it, look for Mohn and keep her self appointed image as a protector of all. This is very selfish, all her talk of protecting others was just that... talk to hide her truer.. darker motives. All of it is displayed in the main story this time when Gladion brought up Mohn.

Thankfully, due to Nihilego not being Lusamine’s central focus this time, we got to see what would have been if that was never the case. In USUM espite how messed up of a person Lusamine became and how messed up as a parent she became, she DOES care about her kids and the pokemon under her care. Which makes her bitterness towards her kids understandable... despite it still being her own damn fault they ran and how Lillie and Gladion had every right to run. She really was hurt by how they left her, she lost those she held dear and her reasons for battling you and going after Necrozma becomes even more fueled... she wanted to prove to those around her that she was right and they were wrong.

This makes her, even in her grief fueled insanity, much more human compared to the monster she was in SM. While she isn’t the caricature of an abusive parent she was in SM, she is more effective as a character in USUM because we see the bigger picture with what has happened to her.

Despite how Hau said “I know she was a good person” Gladion’s reaction should have been enough to tell us that he doesn’t believe that to be the case, he knows Lusamine became horrible BUT he does get why she is doing the things she is doing.

Why she became the bitch she was and why should we care for her having a turn around and making repairs with her kids.

She is someone we still want to slap hard in the face, for all the mega bitch things she pulled and is someone that would turn around for the better.

Her relationship with Guzma... still hasn’t changed much, but brings more into light that YES the things she said to give praise to Guzma were genuine... though she still took advantage of him. The URS and their request for help against Necrozma, an excuse to try and look for Mohn while hiding that selfish reason.

Then Lusamine and Guzma got their asses KICKED by Necrozma. Who followed them straight to an evolved Nebby, these two... agroo’d Necrozma to the last thing ANYONE wanted that thing to be near.

It created a chain of events that lead to things from the first game happening, Ultra Beasts being let loose and calamity nearing. Unlike in SM, there was a reason why the Beasts were ignored this time, Necrozma was the bigger issue for you the player, it took Nebby as its fused form and escaped into Ultra Megapololis.

While this was happening, Lusamine was at the mercy of a pissed of Recon Squad and to Lillie who had a few things to say to her. Lillie told us what it was at Vast Poni Canyon’s entrance and with Lusamine in a better position to listen to Lillie.

During the time between you going after and beating Necrozma... Lusamine listened to Lillie and have a realization into how messed up she was as a person. That is why she apologized to Lillie, admitting that her kids were right to take the two pokemon (Nebby and Null) and run away from her. As her first act of repentance... she tended to what was the Cosmog she hurt for her goals.

Her second act.... letting her kids go. She let Lillie go back to a healthier family environment... away from the toxicity she wrought, she let Gladion go off to Kanto... waving goodbye to him all the more. (I still find that scene heartwarming and... arguable better than when Lillie went on that boat due to all the implications fueling it.)

In between your initial league victory and Rainbow Rocket, Lusamine had a small identity crisis. She knows she isn’t in any position to face her kids after the crap she done to them and she knows she lost the right to claim she was protecting anyone, after all she had hurt... she realized how low she sunk.

Then RR came, she tried to fight Giovanni and got held hostage, with the Don intending on making her into his servant. She may have turned into a Damsel and not do much on screen... but this is generally how things go in Pokemon Games, where a former villain says they are going to change for the better and that is the end of it. (Looking at Archie and Maxie.)

Once RR came... she found a resolve of what to do, made a vow to protect pokemon and love her kids from a distance. That she knows her kids are not her possessions and that she would only be involved with them again if they need her. If you go back down to the Aether Labs after RR... you have an employee tell you that the frozen pokemon are scheduled to be thawed. I didn’t mind the frozen pokemon still being there after that bit of digging, because reality ensues, a mess like that is going to take a while to clean up.

Then a month later, Gladion visits you for title defense and then visits Lusamine for unknown reasons. (Signs that the relationship is being mended.) Mohn appears, the reason for Lusamine’s downward spiral and what she done everything for... he has amnesia due to being a faller and doesn’t recognize his own wife. Lusamine... despite the torrent that was going on in her mind, made it into a casual conversation and let him go back to his new life. Very likely because if Mohn knew what she done... it would have just made him miserable in the end. With Mohn himself making a possibility that he will meet her again.

Very bittersweet, very effective closure to the Aether Families drama. Anyone who says USUM butchered their story, botched Lusamine’s character or retconned her into a “good person” or “a selfless angel” disappoints me to a great degree since SM only focused on her as a villain never bothered with that closure. The only thing that was done in USUM that would be a concern is that the family lost focus for Necrozma’s story, thus we don’t get the same emotional weight compared to SM.

SM’s Lusamine was a beta... and effective villain, but not what Gamefreak wanted from her. USUM made her into a more fleshed out character at some exchange for her villainy and gave her closure that she needed!

Now begins the third... and arguable the one to surpass the other adaptations despite being the most different out of all the others.

The Sun and Moon anime.

In this adaptation, despite having similar things happen in the background.

Her obsession with the Beasts is more of a scientific curiosity, wanting to see one than the things we saw in the SM games.

She didn’t become an abusive parent and would sooner smoother her kids with affection (unwanted affection.) then any of the things we know of from either sets of games.

The incident with Mohn... resulted in her being so depressed that she uses work as a way to null the pain, rather than an obsession with wanting to open the wormhole and look for him.

Is an adorable goofball and is actually a good person.

Despite those changes to her character, she still has quite a few things wrong with her.

She does things the way she wants to do it, her affection towards Lillie was unwanted and she doesn’t get that. In addition, she never really socializes with her kids before making those big decisions in changes. (Like with Clefairy, despite it being her’s and despite Clefairy touching the moon stone willing, Lusamine should have asked Lillie if it was okay to do so.)

Her neglect towards her kids... regardless of work or otherwise is disturbing due to what she allowed to happen. The event that lead to Lillie’s trauma, to Gladion’s distrust AND to all of it festering for a while, in addition to Faba being able to do all sorts of things under her nose.

Her unwanted affection comes off as shallow because work ended up coming before her kids.

They took out the evil aspects of Lusamine’s character... but kept in everything else that was wrong with her, contrary to what many think.

This resulted in the Aether Family having such a strained relationship, why Lillie is so hostile towards her. It took until Gladion chewed Lusamine out, to get it through this woman’s head just how poor of a parent she was. She wasn’t really there for Lillie when she needed her and Gladion thought Lusamine was in on the things Faba has done.

It took Lusamine having to do much to repair that relationship and part of the thing that showed her development was at the episode where Faba used Nebby to open a wormhole and bring in Nihilego. The beast was about to attack Gladion and Lusamine pushed him out of the way to protect him.

For me, I smiled for two reasons and was horrified by another. Lusamine showed her development and showed that she cared that much for her kids... and that I was going to have my sadistic wish of having Nihilego turn her into something close to the nut job we had from the SM games.

And I wasn’t disappointed when we next see her, we the audience may have a reason to care that our heroes are trying to rescue Lusamine... but she was screaming at her kids and in her temper tantrum nearly killed them.

As the Mother Beast... Lusamine was reduced to something like a child that was having her toy taken away from her and made it easier for Nihilego to have her under its control. This is what Lillie verbally struck at the Mother Beast, giving Lusamine a sign that she really need to make improvements as a mother... that realization struck past Nihilego and caused the woman to reach out to Lillie... only for Nihilego to cover her up with her own hair and tried to swat Lillie.

Then Ash uses the Z move and zaps the jellyfish off of Lusamine.

She was rescued, brought back home and had a short recovery. Then she thought of the idea to form and be the mission control of the Ultra Guardians... a group of kids that had experience with dealing with UB’s that are to deal with them.

For the rest of the series... we see the Aether Family slowly make repairs to where it resembles and behaves like normal family. From the Necrozma Arc, to the school play episode and lately, the Mohn episode.

That one, we actually see Lusamine watching in despair at Mohn being dragged into an ultra wormhole. Where is this family going to go in the end?

This answer, might make the SM anime the best adaptation of this drama, in its focus, closure and how it made it relatable to us... despite also being the most different.

I honestly hope Gamefreak does better with their next antagonist and make them easy to understand. Lusamine was a complete mess initially and that caused a ripple in the adaptations we saw.

[tagfer]

you should analyze it! i'm curious

urff okay so. I’ll do it. Here’s some overanalysis on how Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon’s story caused almost all of its major characters to become nothing but jokes compared to their original Sun and Moon characterizations.

With full disclaimers, I actually enjoyed playing Ultra Sun. As far as enjoyment goes, it was probably more fun than Sun and Moon. Story? So much worse.

[Massive USUM spoilers! Of all sorts!]

Also a secondary note: I may have missed a thing or two, so if I have incorrect info, please let me know.

Looker & Anabel (and in a way, Nanu) get their postgame removed. Altogether. None of it happens. Looker shows up early to foreshadow Episode RR, but that’s it. Then postgame, there’s a like, ten line cutscene where Anabel introduces herself as a member of interpol and says she’s going to the Battle Tree, and Looker remarks that she’s not that strong. Yeah, let’s put the dude without any pokemon on guard duty for his boss who also used to run a huge battle facility in another universe.

Compare and contrast to SuMo, where the three of them got an entire story. A very horrifying story, but well written, where it’s explained the consequences of falling through a wormhole turns you into a magnet for extraterrestrial beings who will likely kill you, but not out of malice, and that despite her higher rank than Nanu or Looker, that she’s only being used as bait for those creatures. And it explains Looker and Nanu’s past, showing that Looker was a member of interpol years before the quirky guy we meet in Platinum. And that they had a friend/colleague actually die in front of them, and how they both hold immense guilt for that. Oh and that Anabel is likely from a different universe.

But these characters didn’t have destroyed characterization as much as they don’t get any whatsoever because Looker and Anabel get a mass of maybe 20 lines total, only one of which has anything to do with Episode RR.

I included these first because I’ve previously written plenty about Anabel and Looker, and I absolutely loved their plot, so seeing it absolutely absent is the biggest disappointment of USUM for me.

Lillie loses so much that it’s sad. Let’s be honest, Sun and Moon’s plot is really the story of Lillie. How she can grow from a timid girl afraid of the world to realizing that she has her own strength and can determine her own future.

When you first meet her, she’s afraid of birds. By time the climax happens, she’s traveled to another universe to deliver a Why You Suck speech to her abusive mother (and gets one of the best intense musical numbers in the game!). Early in the game, she idolizes your strength, but over the course of it learns she has her own strength and that just because she isn’t the strongest out there doesn’t mean she can’t overcome her own trials and obstacles. She even has some of the best symbolism in the Pokemon games, ever; discarding her old clothes that signify her mother’s control over her and using ones she picked, saying that she’s now going to take control of her life. And she does.

By the end, it’s emotionally impacting when she takes charge to leave Alola on her own journey.

In USUM, the story has shifted. She’s no longer the main character, you are. Which is classic for a Pokemon game, but compared to the games released a year ago it makes everything hollow. It goes from a story where you’re helping your friend who has family issues that spiral deeply out of control to you being the Chosen One who has to defeat Evil Teams and Lillie is just kind of a companion much like previous “friends”.

Her character arc and foreshadowing plays out perfectly in SuMo where as in USUM it falls flat. In Sun and Moon, the entire reason you visit the Ultra Deep Sea is to finish Lillie’s character arc. During their first confrontation, Lillie (symbolically wearing her first outfit) was not strong enough / did not believe in herself enough to confront Lusamine for everything, but she decides that that’s what she needs to do, and that’s what forces her development and drives the plot. In USUM, she never gets to confront her mother at all. And the plot is driven forward partly by Lillie/Gladion’s want to save Lusamine, but mostly because the Ultra Recon Squad needs more help defeating Necrozma.

This makes all her personal growth so much more shallow. Her motivation is to help you instead of you helping her.

Her becoming a Pokemon trainer in Episode RR isn’t foreshadowed at all either (as far as I know) and rather just comes a surprise when you’re forced into a double battle.

Gladion and Type: Null lose a bunch too. In Sun and Moon, he’s a soft kid who tries to hide his gentleness under a facade of badass edgelord. His escape from Aether Paradise, while obviously inspired by his mistreatment, included saving a Type: Null, because he knew it was in pain. He slowly grows and learns the power of friendship. He even names his Type: Full friend.

After the game, he takes over Aether Paradise in order to make sure everything goes right. Which could be seen as unsatisfying but it’s clear he has grown to the point to accept responsibility.

It looks like it was going to be this way in USUM, but it turns out he just gets a Silver complex. He just wants to be the strongest there is. He implies he kidnapped Type: Null not because he wanted to save it, but because he wanted to train it as the Beast Killer it was meant to be, to the point he even points out its concept as a Beast Killer and attempts to follow Lusamine into Ultra Megalopolis.

Even his leaving Alola is just merely a lust for power instead of Lillie’s search for independence. Wicke even comments that Gladion wants to beat trainers like you and Hau. And he does come back for championship title defense matches (a month after you complete the story). That’s it. He didn’t go on a journey, he went on a training mission. His personal growth has really been traded for a Silver complex, of hollow growth but unending lust of power.

Lusamine is a disaster and arguably gets a worse redemption than she did in Sun and Moon despite having a full redemption in USUM.

SuMo Lusamine is by far one of my favorite villains - both in Pokemon and in general. This is cause despite the fact it clearly isn’t, she totally believed what she did was completely justified. She didn’t see herself as a villain at all. And that’s what makes a good villain. She wasn’t just “oh I’m evil, I want to control the world/etc.” Which Pokemon has a lot of.

Her obsession with beauty (and mistreatment of Lillie and Gladion) was the culmination of years of sanity slippage caused by Nihilego and the loss of Mohn. She even more or less forgets the reason she was looking into Nihilego and instead focuses on Nihilego’s beauty. So while it doesn’t justify what she did, we’re at very least given an explanation as to why she is the person she is.

…

In USUM, so much of this changed it’s… unbelievable. Other than the appearance of Nihilego at Aether Paradise, Nihilego plays no role as far as we know. She suffers little sanity slippage other than delusions of grandeur of helping/defeating Necrozma on her own. She also hopes on seeing Mohn.

She’s still obsessed with beauty. She still treats her kids as ornaments. She still uses Guzma. She still experiments on living creatures, freezes living creatures, and creates chimeras. (And Type: Null gets a special note here because her focus was now Necrozma and not Ultra Beasts - but she was still okay with creating a Beast Killer.)

She also gets no real redemption. Despite all that she did, she suffers no consequence. Lillie never gets to really call her out. Nor does Gladion. She seems to repair her relationship with her children near immediately. Nobody comments that she’s got a giant office full of cryogenicly frozen pokemon, and how she openly announces that her goal was to save Alola from Necrozma to keep that collection. She doesn’t get anything. In fact, you, her, Lillie, and Guzma share a laugh at Faba’s expense right in front of one of her pods, with others also plainly visible.

Post Episode RR, talking to her reveals that you made her rethink her views on beauty. Or something. Honestly, it sounds like the kind of lie you’d feed a kid, but it’s more likely bad and forced character development.

In Sun and Moon, she even remarks to Lillie, who had just stood up to her and then saved her despite Lusamine lunging to kill her, “When did you start becoming beautiful?” Which is a perfect line for her character and Lillie, acknowledging Lillie has grown (and completing Lillie’s arc and foreshadowing). Afterwards, Lillie’s speech to you implies she’s got a chance of redemption - while she doesn’t understand what she did wrong, Lillie is attempting to explain to her, and even though you were a constant disruption to her problems she attempted to visit your championship party. With her trip to Bill to hopefully help her problem of (most likely long-term) neurotoxin poisoning and Lillie’s patience, she could eventually come around and realize what she did was wrong and try to make amends for what she’s done.

Instead, in USUM, she seems to be instantly forgiven for everything. Lusamine deserved better than that.

I will always understand why people hate her. I get it. And trust me, I have strong feelings about what she did too. But she’s still my favorite villain and I will be personally suing Game Freak for what they did to her.

Hau gets a BW Cheren complex where one or two lines of dialog from a character make him rethink everything an in the process lose the major part of his personality that made him noteworthy. Cheren lost his goals, and Hau lost his carefreeness. He’s still a sweet kid and everything, and I’m proud that he actually achieved some more goals in USUM than in SuMo, but his (and Hala’s) changes seem so forced, like they were shoehorned in.

At least for Cheren, he got a game two years later showing how he had developed. We’re probably not gonna get that for Hau.

Guzma is one of the only ones that get a bump. But that’s only because his involvement in the story was hardly affected - he was still Lusamine’s faithful servant, even though she had massively changed.

But because change in the story was minimized for him, his inclusion in Episode RR actually helped his character. And afterwards, he says he’s still looking after his crew. So while the growth was minimal, it was there.

Colress is the only other one I can think of who got better, too, but that’s only because he only had like seven lines in Sun and Moon. This time, it’s shown that… well, he hasn’t changed at all, still being but a selfish, hedonistic scientist who will double cross anyone who asks for his help.

And this is more than proven true when he confronts Ghetsis. Although he didn’t try to hide it in B2W2, he full on says he hates Ghetsis. He was only using him for funding and science.

This is not a real shock.

Like I love Colress’ passion but y’know. Everyone who’s asked for his help got it but also got double-crossed. Oh, and now his technology is reaching scary advanced levels.

[MASSIVE SPOILERS BELOW.]

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Mohn. If you were hoping for a happy ending for the Aether family, I’m here to tell you you’ll be sorely, viscerally unsatisfied. While in SuMo he got nothing, somehow, they made it worse for USUM.

Because they finally meet him.

And they choose to let him live his life not knowing he has a wife, children, and friends who have all been looking for him for like, a decade.

Despite the plots of both SuMo and USUM being set into action by his disappearance, he gets no resolution. 

He fucking comments on how nice Aether Paradise is! And they decide to not be like “oh hey yeah you kinda were a major part of it.”

[sometipsygnostalgic]

pokemon villains and their goals

it’s funny because every evil team in pokemon usualy has a great ambition of some kind. team rocket wanted to take over specific locations and steal pokemon as a big mafia, team magma and aqua were.... environmental extremists, team galactic's leader hated emotions and wants them to be wiped from the world, team plasma was a version of Peta that was secretly working towards the greater goal of taking over the country through manipulation so basically still Peta, and team flare’s leader believes that the only way to create world peace is to heavily reduce the populaton, while all the people he was going to save are extremely vile but here you go.

but team skull, they don’t have any ambition. that’s their entire point. they’re a bunch of punks (literally their trainer class) who failed at their goals and gave up. there’s a bit of backstory about them being from a group that formed around one of the old kahunas but the wrath of the tapu being brouht on them, so i dont knnow what happened there. was that kahuna hala or was there an Asshole kahuna? but Guzma’s main motivation is that his parents are assholes, he failed to become a trial captain, and he’s trying to retain his extremely fragile masculine ego by leading a disruptive gang. Even the “mansion” they take over is completely trashed, and he goes so far as to befriending the Aether President because she strokes his ego and manipulates the poor lad.

talking of the Aether President, it seems that the Foundation has mixed goals; they seem to be a genuine pokemon rehabilitation program, founded by a rich man who deeply cherished pokemon,  that under the direction of President Lusamine and Branch Chief Faba has taken a darker turn. since her husband was taken into an ultra wormhole, Lusamine’s sanity has slipped and she’s grown obsessed with ultra beasts, trying to find ways to either join or destroy them, taking out all of her built-up bitterness on her children and the pokemon they wish to protect. It’s telling when Gladion says they straight up found Cosmog on their side of the same wormhole that stole Mohn - no wonder Lusamine hates poor Nebby so much, but it makes it even more significant that Lillie saved Nebby anyway, that unconditional empathy contrasting with her mother’s rage. Anyway Lusamine’s endgoal is to just... love pokemon and ultra beasts because fuck family, but she doesn’t really care if they’re happy or not, she’ll feeze them forever. An obsession with beauty that outdoes even Lysandre, she dresses her kids up as ultra beasts and beats down their confidence when they show the slightest hints of individuality. I think that Lusamine believes she was “chosen” by the ultra beasts, when Nihilego stole her husband, and this is not only her motivation to reunite with the jellyfish but also to defeat Necrozma. she just... thinks she’s supposed to live with ultra beasts. it’s not until you kick either her or necrozma’s ass that she begins to realise this is a load of horse shit.

faba and wicke show off the two sides to Aether that are also presented by Lusamine, but in a more coherent, sane light. wicke is a kindhearted pokemon conservationist who stays by the president’s side even through all the corruption because she knows that, some day, the aether foundation may return to what it was. she also looks after lusamine’s kids and prevents their mother from, like, freezing lillie or whatever it is she might have done after gladion ran away, and even orchestrated lillie’s escape with cosmog. wicke is the unconditional love of the aether foundation, the spirit of its creation.  faba meanwhile is its corruption. he has no loyalty to anything but his own ambiion, even creating the Type: Full Beast Killer project without Lusamine’s full knowledge but getting caught (in all games and anime btw, just Lusamine had different reactions). he hates the righteous spirit in children and how they meddle with his plans, but he’s so pathetic that they kick his ass easily. faba is a saturday cartoon villain, and even when the aether foundation is returning to its roots, he always remains the same scumbag as always. it’s not until he’s demoted that his ego takes a huge enough strike for him to change.

i want to make note of mohn as well. if all the characters lusamine interacts with are also representations of herself, wicke and lillie her kindhearted determination, gladion her forward-burning force of will, and faba her shady ambitions, then what does mohn represent? he’s a simple, kind man who cares for pokemon that are abandoned into PC boxes by their trainers. he saw a loophole in the way people look after pokemon and decided to patch it up. lusamine’s encounter with mohn in USUM indicates that she never saw him smile much when he was a scientist, and also that deep down she shares his ideas about letting pokemon in boxes be free, something she teased the player character with in the original Sun and Moon. mohn represents what lusamine used to be, what she can be if she lets go of the whole ultra beast nonsense like he did.

[crystalelemental]

USUM Did Bad - Lillie’s Family

Ooooh god.  Okay.  I wasn't originally going to bother.  I feel like other people have said it better, and I got my complaining out.  But I've apparently made this into a series of articles and I've referenced this in every single one, so fine, let's talk about the biggest blunder in Pokemon game history: Lillie's family, and the absolute removal of their characters from USUM.

MOHN Let's talk backstory.  In Sun/Moon, through files you find, you learn that Mohn is a professor who studied the ultra wormholes, but went missing.  Based on appearance and implication, everyone figured out Mohn is Lusamine's husband. His disappearance is oft cited by defenders of Lusamine's actions as the reason she is this way.  Personally, I agree.  I think Lusamine's always been controlling, but Mohn's disappearance was something she couldn't control, and it resulted in her losing the one she loved.  People talk about Nihilego's toxins, and Mohn's loss as causes, but they're really not.  It's catalysts at best.  Lusamine was always set to be this controlling.  Mohn's disappearance just spiked the behavior to the point things got bad.  Even Gladion confirms, she was better when he was around, but it got rough when he vanished.  Given how Mohn is as a person, I don't think he'd stay with someone who was always an abusive level of controlling.  More than likely, she was controlling, but able to keep that in check. That's the impression I always got.

Now, in USUM, Mohn comes back!  For a short scene in the post-game, in which Lusamine talks with him, and lets him leave without a word because "he seems happy."  Excellent writing, USUM, great job.  The woman loses her husband, spirals out of control, and we're just going to brush that all aside.  Get used to the term "brushed it aside," by the way, because it happens a lot with this game.

LUSAMINE So with the history out of the way, let's talk Lusamine.  Because I can't explain how bad Gladion and Lillie got it until we've talked about Lusamine.  Lusamine...is awesome.  I love her as a villain.  My main complaint in Sun/Moon, however, was that her entire character, through implication, seemed to hinge on Mohn's disappearance.  I don't blame people who say Mohn is the main cause of Lusamine's actions.  The game kinda frames it that way.  All we ever get from Gladion is that Lusamine seemed okay prior to their dad's disappearance.  Certainly implies he's a cause.  What we never got was what she was like before.  Based on her actions, I think it's safe to say that she was likely always fairly controlling, just not to the intense degree we see in Sun/Moon.  In those games, she's awful.  Lillie dresses only the way she wants, she manipulates Guzma into following her despite him having nothing to gain, and she preserves her Pokemon in ice to keep them with her forever, probably against their wishes.  She is all about control and manipulation, and it likely stems from both her being that way, and from a heavy sense of loss.  I never minded that Mohn was a catalyst.  I minded that it was implied he was the ONLY reason she was like this.   Fear of loss is a powerful motivator, and for that to be expressed as the reason she manipulates and controls brings in a sense of her being damaged, and having the potential for a redemption arc.  Implying that her husband disappeared and I dunno man, she just went crazy, implies that she has little agency as a character, and Mohn's return would be a simplistic fix.

Which was EXACTLY what I feared would happen.  I saw the spoiler that Mohn came back to Aether, and we all knew they'd try making Lusamine good in the upcoming games as some ridiculous twist.  I expected it to be the worst possible confirmation. Instead, they somehow did something WORSE.  Oh, they talk about Mohn disappearing as a reason for her actions.  But that's explicitly stated more than implicitly felt.  At no point is there any dialogue or action that implies her reason for seeking control is to keep things safe.   Instead, they deviate. Now she wants to stop Necrozma.  Best case scenario, it's to help people. Worst case scenario, it's to add to her collection she still has.  Phyco implies she's the worst case scenario, stating that it's arrogant of her to attempt solving all their problems on her own, but again, that's the only line of dialogue to that effect. Everything else implies that she was being selfless, because they next time we see her, she got beat by Necrozma, you take off to combat it, and in the time you were gone Lillie tells you she talked with Lusamine and they're fine now.  No redemption arc, no struggle, just an off-screen brushing aside of the entire conflict of the previous game.

It hurts Lillie and Gladion substantially, but it hurts Lusamine as a character as well.  What could have potentially been an explanation to her actions and a push toward redemption through this whole "working together" undertone they had going, instead gets brushed aside in favor of a quick and tidy resolution in which no one has to talk about the hard stuff.  It's like they started with the ending premise that Lusamine was going to be a good guy, and someone mentioned "Hey, didn't we make her kinda really abusive to her kids?"  And instead of backpedaling and deciding whether this was a good idea or not, or hell, going forward but acknowledging how hard it would be, they decided "that's fine, we'll just say they talked it out and it's all good."

YOU. CANNOT. DO. THAT.  It invalidates EVERYTHING.  Not just the suffering that Lillie and Gladion went through, but any and all meaning for Lusamine's redemption.  Let's be real here: does anyone truly believe that USUM Lusamine is not still an awful, horrific person?  She kept her frozen Pokemon.  When Lillie tries to confront her and talk her down, Lusamine still snaps and tells her she has no children because they dared to disobey her.  Gladion is still terrified the entire time they go through Aether to save Lillie.  SHE STILL HAS HER FROZEN POKEMON COLLECTION.  Lusamine wasn't redeemed at all.  Her actions are still terrible, and nothing was shown to demonstrate that she's gotten any better.  We're just told she did.

I know people who were entirely against any redemption arc for Lusamine.  I can understand this, but I myself am not against it.  I think there's always a way to demonstrate a good turn from evil, but it's a process.  It takes time, it takes effort, and there's a reason that so many redemption arcs end in death.  It is incredibly hard to do redemption, and it gets harder the more villainous you've made a character.  Granted, this seems to apply more to relational villainy, as someone who, say, abuses their kid is seen as much less redeemable than someone who just wanted to unmake reality because of their ennui.  But still, it can be done.  The important thing to remember when deciding to redeem your villain, however, is to make sure that you're showing how difficult it is.  That you're demonstrating how hard it would be to mend relationships, or break old habits, or even just acknowledge what you did was wrong.  When you do that, it can be a powerful story.  When you decide instead to go "They're a good guy now, just make them talk it out off-screen," you invalidate that process, demean the suffering of the victims of their actions, and insult the reader by expecting them to just go along with this paper-thin facade.  And you cannot impress me with this.

GLADION Remember when Gladion's power-seeking attitude was because he had immense guilt over running away from his problems instead of facing them head-on and leaving his kid sister in the hands of his abusive mother to fend for herself?  Yeah, neither does USUM.  Because now, Gladion did all this because he wanted to be strong enough to fight the cool guy Necrozma (who is super cool, did you know?) so his mom wouldn't have to.

Honestly, do I even need to keep talking?  Re-read that paragraph.  Lusamine is virtually unchanged in any significant way, they just tell you things are different. And Gladion, who acted terrified the whole way through Aether?  Yeah, I guess that was just nerves about fighting Necrozma or something?  Probably not important.  Certainly not related to any psychological scarring brought about from years of abuse or the immense guilt for not being able to help his sister out of the situation too.   Definitely not.

His character is so set aside now.  He doesn't DO anything!  And his relationship with Lusamine, for some reason, is just fine.  The entire time they interact, it's fine.  He's concerned about her safety.  Okay, fine.  Maybe if you want to demonstrate the lasting impact of the emotional abuse, we can show that he's willing to fight Necrozma in her place because she's somehow manipulated into it.  Oh wait, no, she's insisting she'll do it herself and calling him a good kid, literally seconds after shouting at Lillie that she has no children.  Seriously, does no one else hate the whiplash of this scene?  We went from Lillie trying desperately to talk her mother into listening and being told that she wasn't Lusamine's child anymore, to a scene where she's calling both of them good kids and wishing they would just let her handle this so they're okay.  These are back to back scenes!  Did you even think?  Just remove the first one if you wanted to go the route of the second!  This is not that hard!

LILLIE Okay, deep breaths...

Lillie is a fan favorite, and it is super easy to see why.  So easy, in fact, that most people would be surprised if someone said they didn't like Lillie.  So easy, that the only way to not understand why Lillie was such a relatable and well-loved character, would be to have your eyes closed shut, head stuck in the sand, shouting "lalala, can't hear you!" while making loud farting noises with your butt. Which must've been what the writing staff did, because good GOD.

For those uncertain: Lillie is so well-liked because she is a character caught in a situation where her mother is emotionally abusive and controlling of her every action.  In an act of empathy and desperation, she defies her mother to save Nebby's life, and is teleported to a place she's wholly unfamiliar with, scared and alone, until Professor Burnet takes her in. She spends all her time out in the world amazed at what it's like, but also fearful of everyone she encounters until they've proven they're a friend.  In the end, she grows enough as a person to change the appearance her mother crafted for her, and confronts her mother by calling out her actions as awful.  She reaches a place where she can reflect on all that's happened and say "I don't deserve this," and pushes back against unjust actions.  That is not a narrative often seen, and to have the message that victims don't deserve this treatment and that people are not something to be controlled by another, is incredible.  Lillie, as the main character of this story, shines beautifully.  For those who are good with a redemption for Lusamine, the end of this confrontation, where Lillie is still willing to save her mother's life and help her recover, only makes her more likeable.  She's able to state that what Lusamine has done is not okay, but is still willing to make an attempt to help her. It's an implied beginning to a redemption arc, and frankly, if you're gonna go that direction, that's what you need to do.  Imply.  The time it would take, and the effort it would take, cannot be demonstrated all within this game.  But you could try.  Instead, they chose a reasonable sendoff, with the implication of mending the damage, rather than trying to force a quick resolution.

Then USUM shows up and is like "That's for idiots, watch this!" and tosses it all aside.  Lillie is virtually removed from this game.  The entirety of her character arc following the Aether invasion?  Gone.  She still gets her change of clothes, and still has the scene on the bridge of her running forward, but she doesn't confront her mother, she doesn't get her scene with you on Exeggutor Island, and she doesn't even get time with Nebby.  What she does get is an off-screen resolution, where she tells the player all that she needed to do was talk to her mom and it was fine.

I've been trying my best to cut back on swearing, but BULLSHIT.  Not only is that insufficient to mend what's been done, but do you know what Lillie attempted to do during the Aether invasion? TALK TO LUSAMINE.  She was actively trying to get her mother to stop and consider her actions, and Lusamine told her that she had no children because they won't do as she says.  Did they just forget?  How else do you explain the fact that they kept the scene of Lillie talking to Lusamine and being shut down, but then turn around and insist that talking solved their problems?  It's ridiculous.  And more than any other character, it hurts Lillie.  Her entire character got removed.   Oh, she's still there, but like most of them, she's a caricature.  She exists for no purpose now.  We've taken the focus off of Lillie's history and the damaging family dynamic for her and Gladion, and instead we've replaced it with...what, exactly?  What does Lillie still have going for her?  She's cute?  She doesn't have any agency.  And that's the entire issue.

This whole family was taken out of the equation.  They have virtually no bearing on the plot, barring Lusamine's decision to awaken Necrozma for some reason. And even then, her justification for doing so is conflicting within the scene it's established, and the justification they want us to believe isn't consistent with her actions.  She's just as quickly removed after waking up Necrozma, so there's nothing to build on after that either.   Gladion's fear of confronting his mother is completely unjustified with their new setup, and his actions of running away and getting stronger to confront Necrozma doesn't even make sense given his age at the time of leaving, and when the Ultra Recon Squad showed up.  And Lillie. Poor Lillie was just removed from every poignant scene she had, and was given an immediate off-screen resolution to everything she experienced.  The story is disjointed, the characters inconsistent, and this entire family rendered meaningless within their own game, all in favor of focusing on a new Strawman Group and the lame Ultra Necrozma fight.

CONCLUSION USUM is known to be the last handheld game.  "Steve, the Switch is-" No.  It is not.  Pokemon is leaving handhelds, and this is straight-up their sendoff. They've confirmed it.  And looking at it as that sendoff, as the beautiful wrap-up of 22 years of games, I am horrified.  We've made so much growth over the years. We went from a very basic game with virtually no plot or characterization, to full-blown stories about ethical treatment of animals, or how people handle abuse, or even just exploring the human condition.  But at the end, at our cap-off, what do we get?  Characters and story brushed aside in favor of what they think is a really cool and hard final battle with a big glowy dragon thing, and a post-game story focused on the Gen 1 team again.  You could've done so much to be a send-off.  You could've shown so much of your growth and highlighted so many things you've developed.  And instead, you went back to nostalgia pandering and flashy battles devoid of meaning.  If this is sincerely the best cap-off you could produce, and is meant to be the demonstration of you moving into the future console, then for the first time in 22 years, I am inclined to agree with genwunners and say that Pokemon is dying or dead.  Because this?   Shameful. Pathetic.  Inexcusable.  I honestly feel like you didn't even try.  If this is the level of quality we can expect from here on out, then we've hit a point where old fans are dissatisfied because they cannot be satisfied, and newer fans are dissatisfied

[kalosstarters]

OK I finished the /BIG/ part of the plot that happens before the league and I’m angry. Here’s why (obviously spoilers):

Sorry gamefreak, but I don’t like what you are doing with Lusamine. At. all. At the Aether Paradise we found out that she’s still responsible of freezing _possibly thousands_ of Pokémon, and she was proud of it (saying something like “this is my personal collection”. ZERO regrets. 0 care). I know in the previous games some grunt was talking about a way to revive them and keeping them safe until that, which means that technically they aren’t dead. But does that make it any more acceptable? No. They are still Pokémon incapable of doing anything, who knows for how long, years, maybe lifetimes? Because of her. And not only that. She still is acting abusively towards her kids. She hadn’t let them make their own decisions, she still claimed they are not her children (and many other things)... And the fact that she wanted to stop Necrozma, for selfish reasons, does not change that fact.

Well, does this game care about it? No. Back at Aether after showing the Pokémon /no one/ cared about them. No one confronted Lusamine. Some characters even seemed like it was admirable she went after Necrozma (and guess who had to stop that Pokémon anyway). The only person who brought up Lusamine’s real personality after she fell from the Ultra Hole was Phyco (and I love him for it). They had even left Lillie’s amazing speech (that happened in the Ultra Space after Nihilego had taken Lusamine) that showed some real character development out of this game entirely. I mean I understand that they couldn’t do it exactly the same way, but still, she should have told her mother off. She didn’t (not properly). So, what I’m really wishing from this game would be some actual punishment for Lusamine. They are just trying to push her issues away like they didn’t exist even though they very much do. I didn’t like in S/M how Lillie left with her, because I thought she deserved better, but at least in that game the things that happened somewhat made sense. Now this one is just entirely ignoring the issues. And I don’t like it. (Well, after this rant I need to keep in my mind that I still haven’t finished the entire game so there’s still hope that something that would at least slightly fix this would happen... but I kinda doubt it. The one thing they did right tho was Lusamine admitting that Lillie was right.)

After that long and unnecessarily bitter rant, some positives: I love Ultra Recon Squad (and I’m happy they are not evil). Like I already mentioned, I liked how they confronted Lusamine, and Dulse and Zossie were adorable (I wish I had Ultra Sun so I’d get to see more of them). Although, mild anger happened again after they told the PC it will probably take a long while until they get the light back into their world. The poor things deserve better. Lillie was also adorable when we were on our way to the Altar, talking about her plans to become a trainer, etc. The dragon trial turned out to be a lot harder than I remembered, I had to use 4 max revives to survive.. even though I had a fairy on my team and my team was pretty high leveled. The difficulty is never a bad thing :D Also, the Solgaleo riding in the ultra space was pretty cool. And I liked how Guzma decided to become a better person :) That’s some character development. 

That I wouldn’t leave a totally negative picture, I have to mention that overall I am enjoying this game, I love the new additions, the pokemon that couldn’t be found in the previous games, etc, etc, but I just wish Lusamine was written differently. That’s all!

EDIT: one more addition! If anyone who hasn’t played through that part yet reads this, MAKE SURE TO HAVE /at least/ lvl 60ish mon and /particularly/ ‘mon that can take special attacks. That Necrozma is a shit and I wouldn’t have been able to survive at all if it hadn’t been for my Primarina with her good sp def, Necrozma was able to OHKO pretty much all my other ‘mon. (Which isn’t that surprising bc I was aware of their weak defenses but yeah)

[dragongirlafro]

Miscellaneous things I liked about Sun and Moon

-Kukui coming to your house and just letting himself in.

-Kukui asking the main character to find the kahuna without actually giving a short fill in on who he is, other than “he looks just like a kahuna”.

-the little wobble effect when you’re crossing the bridge to save Nebby.

-The main character asking Lillie if she’s a kahuna, either jokingly or because they genuinely have no idea what a kahuna is.

-Hau’s theme. I mean, I’m psyched for Hau in general, but I really loved his music.

-the cutscenes. No seriously. I like reading dialogue and interactions between characters. The cutscenes at the beginning of the game really set the right mood and tone for me imo.

-Trainer models behind their Pokémon during battles.

-finding Ledybas on route 1.

-Kukui yelling “Oh yeah, Rockruff! My body is ready!” from inside his lab, giving the impression of a hilarious double entendre.

-The Rotom pokédex’s witty personality.

-And the wide variety of Pokédex entries ranging from “really sweet” to “how did this get past ERSB’s ratings?”

-just the sentiment of going out into the islands with your starter and just one or two low level Pokemon.

-Pokémon Refresh!! I had no idea how much of an improvement Refresh was to Amie! Like you can just give a Pokemon two sparkly rainbow beans and they’ll love you forever!

-the ability to just go into a PC and grab your pokémon or move it around without any of that “withdraw or deposit” bullshit.

-that adorable scene where Rotom takes a picture of you, Hau, and Lillie.

-Rotom thirsting over “that dreamboat Ilima”.

-The Skull grunts at the berry farm. More specifically the one who had self-esteem issues.

-when the Skull grunts think you can’t tell them apart cause they’d switched positions so they swap places and are like “how’s that?”

-Totem Pokémon being three times larger than they normally would and scaring the crap outta you.

-The fuckin anime-ass pose your main character does whenever they get a Z-crystal

-in fact Z-moves in general. A lot of older fans seem to dislike them but honestly they were one of the only things that convinced me to buy the game.

-Ride Pokémon!!!!No HMs!!!!!!!

-Also being able to program any Ride Pokémon on the D-pad. That’s become like second nature to me.

-that cutscene when you’re on the boat from Melemele to Akala island.

-and that little exchange between Lillie, Hau, and Kukui when they reach the shore.

-The shopping music. Holy fuck do I even need to tell you how amazing the shopping music is in this Gen???

-meeting Dexio and Sina again. I didn’t really care for the whole Zygarde thing but just seeing those two again was really sweet.

-Paniola Ranch and its chill af vibes.

-Lana trying to find a “strapping young swimmer” when she’s supposed to be guiding you through her trial.

-and her trying to convince you that her trial site has a Kyogre in it.

-The frickin Water type Z-move dance. Oh my god that wavy hula dance is the cutest thing ever.

-The whole “Professor Kukui wtf are you doing” “Who is this ‘Professor Kukui’ you speak of I am the Masked Royale!!” exchange.

-and then he just blurts out “and now we have our foursome!” and all the characters ignore it and move on as if that’s a normal thing to say in everyday conversation

-Kiawe’s trial. Just… everything about Kiawe’s trial.

-But mostly Hiker David.

-“Press A to pound the ingredients.”

Honestly tho that was the only redeeming quality to Mallow’s trial Totem Lurantis can go fuck itself in USUM.

-Professor Burnet’s groovin’ dimensional research lab theme.

-when Olivia does the Rock type Z-move dance and the camera just zooms in on Lillie gawking over her.

-OH YEAH that Pyukumuku chucking thing where you can get 20 000 pokédollars a day. I hope they bring that back because that was a real good way of making cash.

-And those missions in Pokécentres where if you’ve caught a set amount of Pokémon or if you’ve caught a specific Pokémon they’ll pay you like 10 000 dollars or something.

-Meeting Wicke for the first time and her being incredibly sweet and nice.

-That small bit when Hau can’t believe that Lusamine’s more than 40 years old and she’s really flattered.

-battling Nihilego for the first time.

-That scene on the boat to Ula’Ula Island where Hau talks to you and offers you a Malasada. That really solidified his friendship with the main character for me.

-Speaking of which that part where you’re at Malie Garden and Hau asks “hey, did you know-“ and you can just say “yah i know” and he’s like “dude come on I haven’t even asked the question yet.”

-that little side quest where you have to find a woman’s eight Stuffuls on route 10 that’s like really sweet but also why does she have so many stuffus?

-The Skull grunts who fucking try to steal a bus stop sign.

-Molayne. I liked his relationship with Kukui and Sophocles.

-and I especially liked the part where he gave you Kukui’s mask and when you give it to him Kukui’s just like “oH uhhhhh I’ll um give it back to the Masked Royale when I uh see him”

-Blush Mountain. It has such a nice name. Blush Mountain.

-Acerola’s, um… Little brother and sister? Kids she’s babysitting? I wasn’t too clear on how they were related to her, but they were cute either way.

-the whole bit where rotom’s afraid to go into the haunted store because “spoopy scary ghosts” despite him literally also being a ghost.

-On the subject of those two kids, the event where Team Skull stole the girl’s Yungoos and she gives you a Rare Candy just to get it back fucking broke my heart like oooooohhhh sweetie you didn’t have to give me this I would have gotten your Yungoos back either way!!

-Plumeria!!She was so underrated!

-uncle Grimsley’s cointoss bit where you could pick heads or tails but if you picked neither then he’d just say that Skarmory swooped in and grabbed it in midair, even though that obviously never happened and he was just bullshitting you.

-Also just the mere fact that Grimsley refers to himself as “Uncle Grimsley”

-Nanu. Enough said.

-The fact that all the Team Skull grunts in Po town are gay. Every. Single. One of them. gay

-That scene where Nanu does the Dark type Z-move pose and the main character and Gladion just stare at him and there’s just an awkward pause until he goes “there you cleared your trial or whatever”.

-actually now that I think about it, Sun and Moon had a lot of subtle humour.

-when you were infiltrating Aether Paradise and a good amount of employees were set on stopping you but there was like that ten percent who were like “whoa shit’s gettin wild out here lmao do you want us to heal your ‘mons? We could even take you back if you wanted i ain’t about to lose my job over some space conspiracy fuck that noise”

-That one Skull grunt who was all like, “wanna see me get hit by a Hyper Beam?”

-When you Battle Guzma outside of Lusamine’s mansion.

-LUSAMINE’S BATTLE THEME. HOLY SHIT.

-“Doot doo doo, just a Kahuna, taking a stroll through the laguna.”

-when Hau compliments Lillie over her outfit makeover and Gladion immediately pulls the defensive brother card.

-Seafolk Village’s night music. Oh my lord I’ve never wanted to marry a video game meledy before it.

-Hapu!!! Another underrated character!

-That scene where Lillie and the main character are in the cave on Exeggcutor Island in the rain.that was super cute.

-Vast Poni Canyon! Love me that guitar and flute!

-Mina!!! I can’t wait for her trial in usum I love her so much!!!!!

-when you go to Ultra Space and Rotom is unconscious because you’re disconnected from your world.

-When Lillie gave that whole speech to Lusamine and her sole reaction was basically “¯\_(ツ)_/¯” that absolutely slayed me

-After all that shit in Ultra Space and catching Nebby goes down and then Nanu’s just chilin’ at the Altar and is like “oh, hey, you can challenge the league I guess, if you really felt like it.”

-Kahili!!!!!

-THE MOTHERFUCKING CHAMPION THEME!!!

-that corny-ass scene where Lillie was gonna say something to the main character after the festival and it was all set up like a love scene from the final act of a goddamn comedy romance film and then they get shouldered by the fireworks. My heart can’t handle that kind of sappy cuteness and I need more of it.

-Looker and Anabel. Those two were adorbs.

-oh. And Alolan Raichu. When I first saw that Pokémon revealed in the trailer last July I knew that I had to buy Sun and Moon. Alolan Raichu is what got me into Pokémon.

[captainshyguy]

so uhhh...i finished ultra sun/moon’s main “story” and here are my Thoughts 

all im gonna say above the tline if you want a good gameplay game, both sun and moon and ultra sun and ultra moon works 

if you were looking of a game with genuine emotion/one where lillie and gladion get any further development and their characters dont feel tacked on and cheap...play sun and moon lmao

ok im gonna go good first bc unfortunately i have a lot of bad stuff to talk about and i mean i ALOT which is annoying since i spent 40 fucking pound on this game 

good

god the top screen graphics were really nice like it looked so much more vibrant and the water and grass looked BEAUTIFUL 

the ultra recon squad were great, especially when phyco wanted to throw down with lusamine like same binch 

poipole is SO CUTE AAAAAAAAA 

more ilima content?? THANKS GAMEFREAK AAAAAAAAA literally like??? you see him at the trainers school, then in hao’oli city, then again in hau’oli, then for his trial, then after hala’s and then he’s a part of mina’s??? and he shows up for the festival and he also has 2 sidequests where you get to talk to him and stuff??? and you get some backstory? NICE 

also seeing him with more than 2 pokemon was nice thanks 

like honestly when i asked for more ilima content i didn’t think i’d get it bjdgkdsgkdfs 

mina being more prominent was nice 

TOTEM RIBOMBEE THANK YOU FOR SHOWCASING THIS AMAZING POKE 

mantine surfing is cute 

as someone who only played moon and not sun, im glad i got to fight kiawe this time around! 

gong up to pokemon on the street and getting to like play peekaboo with them? incredible 

elite 4 molayne was pretty damn cool

the sheer amount of cool little sidequests was really fucking cool, i still haven’t done them all/found them all probably???? i like how they’re more extnsive than in sun and moon, like the letters, the dugtrio girl, the hypno thing with ilima

speaking of ‘THEY STOLE MY NUGGET’ BNKJDSGNDSKJGDSG

also that tiny sidequest on route 15/16 where there’s a sandygast and if you talk to the kid he’s all ‘look what i made!’ and then the sandygast turns round and its like ‘SAND!!! DEE!!! GAST!!! with like a zoom in on each pause JKSDGDSKGSDG 

hau really comes into his own in this game, honestly he and guzma are the only characters from sun and moon that actually get any significant character development, and i love hau a lot bc he’s super sweet so?? getting to see him more and see his motivations, and show how close you and him are was a delight, like it almost, almost saves the game for me like hau....thank u b without you i WOULD have thrown this game out the window

o yeah speaking of YOU HAVE TO BATTLE HAU FOR THE TITLE OF ALOLA’S CHAPMION AAAAAA now i’m kinda mixed abt this bc honestly i loved fighting kukui, which y’know, doesnt happen in this game (unless he’s gonna challenge you when you redo the elite 4) and it felt like more was at stake?? like the music was better and kukui was harder so???? idk it still gave me chills fighting hau tho 

the rotomdex was sweet overall, though i do have my problems 

the music that plays when necrozma comes out of the ultra wormhole was incredible, it took my breath away 

bad 

this game took away almost every ounce of charm and emotion that sun and moon had and i’m absolutely furious, i get this game was more about the gameplay, but emotional highlights in sun and moon just didn’t happen, lillie and gladion and nebby got COMPLETELY shafted, and everything that made sun and moon so great story wise was gone

what i mean by that is the main driving force behind sun and moon was lusamine being the evil fuck that she’s supposed to be, and gladion and lillie’s absolute defiance to that, growing, tearing away from their mother and becoming their own people!! it was amazing, inspiring, especially in lillie’s case, seeing her go from quiet and timid to defying her mother to her face, shouting and making her point!!! that didn’t happen here, like yeah they run away, but bc of what they did to lusamine’s character, it felt nowhere near as impactful, and i really didn’t feel for lillie and gladion at all?? or nebby???? 

they tried to keep some things the same, but with lusamine’s character suddenly being all over the place, like the whole ‘oh she has good intentions, but she thinks she knows the best for everyone and does stuff no matter if it’s what people want or not’ but then they kept juxtaposing this, she calls lillie and gladion wretches, then she calls nebby gallant for loving lillie, she still has pokemon frozen in her fucknig hidden room, yet hau calls her a good person like???? what???? it doesnt work?? her characterisation was all over the place, and having her be good and stay at the end pissed me off SOOOOOO MUCH because like....i don’t like lusamine in sun and moon, she’s an evil fuck who was awful to her kids, but what she did made me adore lillie and gladion, and lusamine was a good character, not from a moral standpoint, but from a written standpoint, she was written so well and SOOO EVILLY and they just took that away, and it made none of lillie and gladion’s stuff make any sense??? which really pissed me off bcsun and moon was such a story driven game, it wasnt really about the protagonist, it was about lillie and nebby and their journey!

speaking of, watching lillie get forced down to a side character in this game was the worst, she doesnt go with you to exeggutor island and have tat amazing speech, she doesnt go through the ultra wormhole with you she’s just...there...and her changing into her z powered form in this game felt so forced bc like...what has she been through really, like she run away with nebby yeah, then her mum was like?? being kinda reasonable then not, and oh she went in the wormhole???? that whole aether scene felt so underwhelming, the music didn’t even change when nebby was getting hurt, unlike the other one, with lusamine’s characterisation being all over the place, it made lillie and gladion’s “arcs” in this game seem so weak and cheap 

oh yeah speaking of the aether scene what the FUCK was up with gladion like ‘oh take me with you null was made to be a beast killer!’ are you TELLING ME that after gladion says cosmog will bring disaster and they have to save it he’d REALLY try to go with, which obvious would fucking HURT NEBBY??? WEAK GAME FREAK WEAK 

can’t you tell they REALLY forgot to add anything on type null/silvally it was just...there 

gladion just randomly leaving at the end was fucking insulting, it was insulting because you can TELL they tried to add a tiny bit of emotion by paralleling lillie leaving in sun and moon but??? it doesnt work??? gladion barely has any development in this game/a big amazing arc like lillie did, you arent there to see him off, so it just genuinely feels insulting, especially since gladion actually had no reason to fucking leave lmao 

lusamine’s not obsessed with nihilego anymore?? TERRIBLE that was like her defining fucking trait??? 

also like...what was the point of nihilego coming through the wormhole at paradise, that scene has no fucking relevance/the same impact/foreshadowing or anything, it was literally just to be like ‘oh yeah that’s an ultra beast’ that was IT

now like what they COULD have done was have lusamine obsessed with NECROZMA this time around, she wants it so she can take away alola’s light, so she can catch it and use it WHY WASNT THAT THE STORY, AND SHE COULD STILL BE AWFUL AND EVIL AND CRAZY AND IT COULD MAKE LILLIE AND GLADION’S DEFIANCE ACTUALLY FUCKING MEAN SOMETHING, AND NEBBY GETTING ABSORBED BY NECROZMA HAVE SO MUCH MORE SIGNIFICANCE, IT WOULD PARALLEL THE CONTROLLING/ABUSIVE WAY LUSAMINE ACTS TOWARDS HER CHILDREN and they had SUCH A GOOD OPPORTUNITY HERE THAT THEY MISSED 

there wasn't that amazing set of credits with the photos of all the characters you’ve grown to adore in this??? and that picture that rotom snaps of you in sun and moon you dont even fucking see it in this, despite rotom still taking it?? fuck this 

my 5 FAVOURITE QUOTES WERE TAKEN AWAY ALL OF MY FUCKING FAVOURITES rotom calling ilima a dreamboat, that bit where lillie says ‘ Whenever I feel like there's nothing I can do, you seem to show up and...you do something. Every time, you've shown me that it's possible... to do something.’ that AMAZING bit where she goes off at her mum like ‘Children... Children are not just THINGS that belong to their parents! Pokémon are not just THINGS that a Trainer can do whatever they want to! I am alive! Cosmog is alive! We are not things for you to collect!, that bit right at the end where she's narrating the credits  ‘ Everyone's smiles shine so brightly. Those smiles led us to so many other people. And those meetings will lead us to a bright future. I'm so glad I got to meet everyone. I'm so glad I got to meet you.’  and the last one is Plumeria’s incredible line which really made me like her when she was like ‘no one can make up for what they've done if they're gone’ ever SINGLE ONE OF THESE WAS GONE basically they took lillie’s best lines, and they took plumeria and rotoms best lines

despite everything, we didn’t... actually learn where necrozma, solgaleo and lunala actually...come from/their origins like??? we’ve learnt there’s multiple lunala and solgaleo, seemingly only one necrozma, but like?? are they ultra beasts or not?? why dont beast balls work then lmao??? 

i’m sorry i love lillie but....i’d 100% rather have this amazing strong incredible lillie in sun and moon leave and make my heart wrench and make me cry bc it was so emotional and beautiful, than have this usum lillie stay around, this one who hasnt been through everything, who hasn’t had this amazing beautiful arc, who just randomly gave me nebby, with the whole catching nebby scene completely tacked on with none of the emotional impact that the sun and moon catching nebby scene had, who was reduced to such a side character that i cant possibly feel the same emotion for her

i just...i know pokemon games have always been about gameplay, and sun and moon was an exception but,....sun and moon was the first mainstream pokemon game i’ve ever played, and it blew me away, it was breathtaking, incredible, it was the best fucknig game i’ve ever played, it has the best fucking story i’ve ever had the honor of playing, it was complex, deeply emotional, and still so so wholesome, despite all the awful stuff that happens, it was beautiful, heartwarming, heartbreaking, i loved it and it will forever have a place in my heart, so playing this...and watching the characters i love being forced aside, with everything i love about them being gone was the most disappointing thing i’ve ever had to witness and it’s made me furious to the point where i barely even want to play through the post game rainbow rocket shit (if hau comes along then i will, if it’s just lillie and guzma, then....i dont know) because what’s the fucking point honestly 

[imaginegladions]

My gosh, I would probably give you a small piece of my soul for a Star Trek AU. ; A;

Star Trek: Beyond was the best like the entire series of movies was such a rollercoaster ride because I went from Spirk to Mckirk to Spones shipper through all of them.

I rlly… rlly love Star Trek okay like omfg.

STAR TREK AU HEADCANONS:

Lillie is defo studying in the Science department. Probably in Xenobiology.

She wants to help all the alien species too. :3

Her brother, Gladion, is on the Command track though.

Gladion is good with sciences but he’s much better suited to leading. 

Hau studies Engineering because he’s better with physical work.

In which, Hau is Scotty except he’s not stuck on a base in a deserted planet.

Gladion has finally managed to be taken in as Second in Command for the U.S.S. ALOLA after being transferred from the U.S.S. SKULL. 

He was the Pilot for U.S.S. SKULL and Plumeria was Second in Command to Captain Guzma. :3

The Captain of the U.S.S. ALOLA is Hala ofc.

Lillie gets good enough that she’s bumped up to Head Science Officer after Kukui retires. 

You are the Head Medical Officer. Well, not really, but there’s a huge attack on the U.S.S. ALOLA and you end up becoming the Head Med Officer because the Head Officer… well, dies.

Not the way you wanted to inherit this position but okay.

You have a bunch of idiots you have to make sure not to let die.

And chiefest and greatest of all worries is the new Captain.

Hala gets injured and leaves Gladion in charge while you treat him.

The old man is still v chipper even with his leg broken up.

Gladion and Hau become close solely because the only reason the ship is even still functioning is because of Hau.

Not that Gladion would say thanks…

Lillie has to force him to say thanks.

Ergo, Lillie and Hau friendship.

Your troubles aren’t finished though. Because, during all that fuss, another ship from the future appears with a biG ASS SHIP CHASING IT.

The same big ass ship that messed up the U.S.S. ALOLA in the first place.

Gladion is all for leaving and saving his crew but the smol ship sends a message to the ALOLA and it’s!!! Lillie!!! and his!!! dad!!!

Mohn somehow managed to get himself stuck in the future where Lusamine goes so nuts at his disappearance that she decides to get revenge on Starfleet.

Mohn and Lusamine were head scientists on an Outpost in a different country. 

Mohn got lost in time during an experiment in a somewhat near future.

Mohn somehow made it back in time but a little farther in the past than he intended.

They beam Mohn into the ALOLA and crash his ship into the centre of Lusamine’s doom ship.

Future!Mohn is super thankful but unless they find a way to send him to the right time he’ll have to stick around for a bit.

Gladion and Lillie make sure to tell their parents not to get involved in any time-travel related experiments. 

Instead of a time travel experiment, they get involved in the unfreezing of a superhuman named Nihilego.

Nihilego brainwashes Lusamine into destroying Starfleet with her because Nihilego’s family was imprisoned by Starfleet.

In truth, though. The Ultra Beasts were responsible for almost ending the Earth a few years back.

Gladion and some people from the ALOLA are beamed onto Nihilego’s ship - a stolen Starfleet ship called the U.S.S. SYMBIONT - and Lillie talks some sense into Lusamine (treating her with some medicine you gave her).

Meanwhile, Gladion brings Nihilego down. ( *^*) 

*shakes fist in air in victory*

He also manages to hurt himself quite a bit.

Actually, he pretty much almost dies.

When Lillie and Lusamine bring him back to the ALOLA he’s half dead. 

You’re in tears as you operate on him for two days.

Luckily, your ever helpful Hau comes in with Nihilego as their prisoner and you have to take a blood sample while Gladion is still stable.

You realise that Nihilego’s blood can save Gladion!

You have to carefully inject Gladion with the alien blood in specific places and in specific doses that aren’t tested yet.

It’s all very stressful and screams court martial but you don’t care you just need to make sure your dumb Captain lives goddamnit.

When Gladion finally wakes up!!!

You want to hit him so bad but he’s just woken up from certain death so you end up grabbing him in his stupid face and kissing him.

Wolf whistles by all the medical staff.

Gladion fights all the Starfleet Officials to keep you on his ship.

*cackles at the possible fandom joke*

You have to stop practicing medicine for a while as punishment for using an untested substance but eventually you get your license back (after taking some repetitive tests).

You have your own spot in the Bridge now despite not being needed there bc you’re just medical personnel. 

Gladion just likes having you around.

You like to be next to him to make sure he doesn’t do something insanely self-sacrificing.

You and Lillie team up to protect him.

Sometimes, Hau will come up to the bridge and you three commiserate over messing with Gladion so he’ll lighten up. XD

Lusamine and Mohn retire after discovering a safe way to send Future!Mohn back to his original time. 

[kirbychan234]

So after talking about this with @simonsoys a while back, I’ve been struggling to figure out how to word this idea we came up with. Hopefully this’ll do.

So hear me out on this:

Interpol Agent Guzma

He’s a Faller too, right? Meaning the Ultra Beasts are attracted to him the same way they were attracted to Anabel.

Picture: Maybe about a month or two after the events of the postgame, and after a pretty big match at the Battle Tree, Guzma is giving back the Toxapex that Plumeria loaned him (because I love that headcanon too). They’re still on a little rocky terms but Plumeria’s had some time to cool off. They chat for a bit before a commotion distracts them.

An Ultra Wormhole has opened up on top of the Battle Tree and out pops a Nihilego. Guzma’s frozen from fear, which surprises Plumeria because she’s never seen Guzma like that before. Luckily it doesn’t take long for Plumeria to snap Guzma out of it, saying he needs to get himself together and help her fight that thing. Guzma shakes off the fear. He’s not gonna let some stupid jellyfish thing get the best of him again.

They battle Nihilego (properly this time), and manage to defeat it, but since they don’t have any Beast Balls, it disappears. While Guzma and Plumeria talk about what the heck just happened, Nanu looks on. He was there from the beginning, because he always is when a UB shows up, and can’t help but smile a little at the progress Guzma has made. He left before he was noticed however, mostly to gather the other Interpol agents to catch the roaming UB.

I don’t think Nanu and Guzma were ever enemies. Mutual annoyances at worst and understanding acquaintances at best. He’d never say it but Nanu was honestly curious as to how Guzma was doing and would check in with Hala now and again. However, unlike Plumeria, who channeled her redemption through going through the island challenge, Guzma wanted nothing to do with that. So Guzma was essentially a great trainer but with no real motivation or end goal in mind, other than a few battles now and then at the Battle Tree and training with Hala.

I also think that it was Nanu that managed to convince Guzma to disband Team Skull in the first place. Guzma’s head was not in the right place after all that Ultra Space fiasco and the Grunts didn’t deserve that. They needed someone strong, and right now, Guzma wasn’t that. It took a while, a lot of yelling ensued, but eventually Guzma realized that Nanu was right. Everyone in Team Skull deserved better than him, so he had to disband it. Afterwards, even with Hala’s help and the Battle Tree in there, Guzma just seemed to lose all motivation, all sense of purpose. He was lost. It seemed disgraceful to see so much potential go to waste, especially since he had even mastered Mega Evolution.

Nanu gave it some thought for a few days before deciding to call in a few friends. There weren’t a lot of people that Guzma would listen to, but he knew one person who had completely earned the retired Skull boss’ respect.

A few days later, Sun/Moon is happily leading Guzma towards one of the hotels on the four islands. Despite Guzma’s best efforts, he can’t get MC to confess what they want with him, the only response being it was a secret.

It turns out they were leading him to a meeting with Anabel and Looker, set up by Nanu. At first Guzma is furious, accusing MC for turning him in to fucking Interpol, but eventually he manages to be talked down. Anabel explains that they know about him being the retired boss of Team Skull, about him working with Lusamine, about him being a Faller, and about his recent exploit about battling UB-01. It’s especially fascinating to them that Guzma was a host to a UB-01 at one point but managed to break out of its control with little to no consequence, unlike Lusamine. She finishes by saying they would like to see more. Guzma is understandably suspicious at first, but Anabel’s challenge to a battle makes it hard to say no.

It’s a close battle, and no matter who wins, the Interpol agents are impressed. They finally offer Guzma what they came to do in the first place: to join Interpol. At first Guzma is convinced that they’re joking. He is not police material, let alone International Police material. Anabel disagrees, saying that two people had recommended Guzma to them, the first one being the champion, and the other remaining a secret (Nanu grins as he listens in from outside). He is an excellent Pokémon trainer, has experience doing secret missions, and even has some personal experiences with the threats they are tracking down (evil teams and Ultra Beasts). Interpol could use someone like Guzma, putting those skills of his to use in more efficient and productive ways. They see the same potential in him as they do the champion of Alola, however, the champion is far too young to go on Interpol missions outside of Alola. Guzma, however, is not.

At first Guzma just blows them off, saying he doesn’t want anything to do with the police, and goes off. Anabel says to at least give it some thought while laughing to herself. Looker isn’t so sure about this but if Nanu and the champion think he would be good for the job, then he won’t question.

Guzma tries to get the thoughts out of his mind but they won’t leave and it’s driving him crazy. Eventually after a few days, he talks to Plumeria about it. He expects her to laugh about it, but she actually says he should go for it. She thinks it would be good for him as well, not to mention, it would get him traveling all around the world and away from those Alolan traditions he seems to hate so much. She assures him that she’ll keep an eye on their previous grunts as much as she can. He just needs to come back safe and a better man for everyone who’s waiting for him.

Plumeria’s words are weighing heavily on him. He knows she’s right, he needs to be a better person for all of the people who look up to him, but he’s still torn. Alola’s the only place he’s ever known, even if he thinks its traditions are stupid. He’s been very tepid for the past few days and eventually, one day while training, Hala asks him about it. It takes a while to get it out of him, but eventually Guzma reveals the offer he was given.

Again to his surprise, Hala is thrilled with the idea. He says it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, and one he shouldn’t pass up. Guzma is stunned that Hala trusts him enough to accept the offer. Everyone is saying this would be good for him…

Eventually Guzma relents. He goes back to MC and asks them to take him back to the Interpol officers. He’ll take them up on their offer…at least for now. If it doesn’t work out, well, at least he tried.

And then he goes to Unova and gets a Volcarona because dangit give this boy the fire moth

[crystalelemental]

Let’s start with something my writer friends might yell at me for: In any narrative that’s not entirely visual, there’s going to be exposition.  This happens, and I’m pretty sure it’s unavoidable.  Someone, at some point, is going to just explain something.  “Show, don’t tell” exists to encourage people to actually demonstrate what they’re talking about, rather than just wall of text at people at every turn.  In essence, it’s insisting that you need to show the important parts to make a believable story with any emotional impact.

When we’re talking villain redemption, the critical component of a good redemption arc is the turning point.  A turning point is used either to showcase the exact moment a villain’s motives and goals are called into question by the villain themselves, and serves as the tipping point for them to change their actions, or to emphasize how irredeemable a villain is by having them reject the introspection and continue to act as they have.  The immediate example of this that comes to mind is Kira from JoJo part 4.  Had he kept his head down, he could’ve lived the rest of his life comfortable and quietly with that family.  Instead, he has too go all murderer again, and we’re shown that he’s beyond help.  These turning point moments guide the rest of their development, and is the critical component that needs to be shown to make actions beyond that point believable and meaningful.

Again, examples are better, so let’s take a scenario in which ORAS had gone the alternate story route in the same way as USUM.  In RSE, Maxie and Archie have their villain moments as you chase them around the region, watching them cause problems.  At the end, they use the orbs to awaken the legends, and stare in horror as the sun/rains intensify.  They comment aloud that this isn’t the world they wished for, and that everything is all wrong.  In that moment, we see the introspection and the realization that they done goofed, and they begin to work toward stopping the problem before vanishing, only showing up to return the orb to its proper place.

Then, in ORAS, the same events happen, up until the time of awakening.  When the beast awakens, Maxie/Archie disappear with them.  They’re completely gone, you witness the devastation alone, and you go to battle the beast alone, maybe with Steve/Wallace’s help.  When you return from the cavern, Archie and Maxie are just there, and Steven comes up to you and says “Hey, so I talked it out with them and they decided the ecosystem is probably okay as it is!  They’re good now!”  And the rest of the game, there are hidden scenes they have placed around where they might make statements like “I still wish to find a way to create more habitable land for people, but maybe the oceans are necessary too” or something along the lines of acknowledging the other side.  Which one hits harder?  The first, obviously.  It shows the impact their actions had, the moment they looked within themselves and found their way, and made action to change.  We don’t really see them being good at any point, but if we were told in a game that took place years after this that they were around and good people, we’d buy it.  Because we saw the moment they changed as people.  The second just has them uttering some vacuous nonsense about the other side having a point without really doing anything.

Or, supposed FRLG and HGSS took a different path.  In RBY, Giovanni is fought several times, and at the end he disbands Team Rocket in shame.  In GSC, you get the follow-up on Team Rocket disbanding, and maybe a scene of Giovanni contemplating his history before leaving for good.  Then, in FRLG, you fight Giovanni only as the Gym Leader.  You see him in the villain roles, but he never battles, always passing it off to others.  You beat him, and you get something like “Not bad, kid.”  And that’s it.  You beat the rest of the game, and it ends there.  Then in HGSS, Team Rocket is still disbanded, and you see Giovanni a lot after you beat the admins again, and he’s talking about how “Maybe the caring and love for Pokemon is what makes a trainer strong” but otherwise does nothing.  Again, he’s not evil now, based solely on “he’s not doing anything evil, and he’s commenting on understanding the problem.”  But there’s no justification.  Again, without the moment of introspection on the part of the villain, subsequent actions that show they’re good feel like they came out of nowhere, and there’s no context for the alteration.

That’s what happened this gen.  In SM, Lusamine unleashes the Ultra Beasts on the world to escape to her own paradise with Nihilego.  We see her fuse with this being that she captured, and the beast she is now part of rejects her, nearly kills her, and it's her child that comes to her rescue at the last second.  We see the experiences she had as a villain, and the final line she gets in the game is acknowledging that Lillie is "becoming beautiful."  Similarly, Guzma we see within the world of Nihilego, now freaked out and defeated.  He encountered something that he couldn't touch, much less beat down, and the creature was terrifying to him.  The core of his being as the toughest dude alive is broken down, and we see his reaction to the world while within it.  Because we see these things, we have justification for them to change.  Do they?   Not openly. Lusamine is apparently still having a rough time of it, and Guzma still hasn't internalized what Hala was trying to teach him, but in giving you his "lucky charm," he takes that first step.  We don't see what lies beyond that, but we see the first moments of reform, and the transition is believable because we've gotten justification in the scenes that are shown to us.  Had Lusamine come back late in SM post-game, and talked about how she’s considered changing, I’d buy it.  Had Guzma been shown, later on, to have come to accept his losses and is working toward improvement, I’d buy it.  I have been shown their tipping point, I have had the process shown to me, and we’re making progress.  That is believable and significant to me.

In USUM, they handle it very differently. Let's start Lusamine.  Lusamine's scenes are kept virtually the same, up until the very end of the Aether Paradise Invasion.  They keep the Nihilego thing (and then do nothing with it, oddly enough; what was the point of that now?), and more significantly, they keep her snapping at Lillie that she has no children.  Then, in the immediate scene after this, Lusamine is talking about how they're good kids and she's doing this to protect everything.  Which...okay, that's some strong whiplash.  From "You're both dead to me" to "You're good kids" in the span of under 3 minutes of gameplay.  Incredible.  Honestly I feel like that level of backpedaling on a character is enough to justify my distaste.

The next time you see her, she's being thrown back to your world by Necrozma and urges you to run.  You do not do this, and instead go to fight Necrozma. When you return, Lillie tells you she talked it out with her mom, and they're on good terms now.  Guzma gets the same problem.  They come back from their Necrozma trip, which we don't see, and he just states he gets what's going on and bam, reformed.  There's no struggle, no sense of reality to it. Essentially, there’s no follow-up.  The turning point is critical to show, but it’s also pretty important to show an act of good.  Maxie and Archie are a good example.  They return the orb.  It’s small, but it’s an act showing their change.  Imagine if they’d kept that and had the fossilized legend in their basement, and you all have a good laugh about something with another character while they held the orb and the legend was right behind them.  That’s what happened with Lusamine and the frozen Pokemon.  Her “thinking about letting them go” is not action; the problem still persists, and nothing she does at any point shows her to be any different.  She tells you she’s different.  She tells you she might let things go, or that she’s not going to control Lillie and Gladion’s life.  But there’s no presented action behind it.  SM may not have shown us the end of that process, but it leads us through the first steps in a way that's far more believable than what USUM presents.  USUM wants us to believe that they're beaten up, and suddenly now they're good.  For reasons!  If SM issue is "I don't see her change at the end," then USUM's problem is "I don't buy that she's actually changed."

To cap this off: "show, don't tell," as a concept, exists to state that the important details of your story need to be explicitly shown, rather than implicitly stated.  If we're told a major event happened but don't see it, it feels like we're cheated.  If a major change in a character occurred but we don't see it, it doesn't feel believable.  The critical aspect of a redemption arc isn't that they get to be good. That's the outcome at the end of the road.  The critical component is seeing the turning point.  When we see the turning point, it's easy to accept that a redemption has occurred or will occur, (ie, "when did you start becoming beautiful?").  In fact, stories sometimes use the demonstration of this turning point, followed by the villain not accepting it, in order to show how irredeemable someone is.  It's important to have that moment to establish the impact of a change, or the impact of a refusal to change.  Without being shown a turning point, a villain's redemption is now implicit.  We're left to just believe that the turning point occurred and that it was justifiable (ie, "We talked it out and it's fine now!").  One presents a situation in which, regardless of the villain's choice, that choice has meaning.  The other presents a situation in which no choice was made, things just happened.  I don't think I need to explain which one carries the emotional impact.

As a few miscellaneous points for the responses on the other posts, because I can’t not:

I commented that Lusamine is one of the most villainous villains not based on global impact, but on emotional impact.  It’s the same deal as the old Voldemort/Umbridge dichotomy.  Voldemort’s bad and a problem for everyone, but Umbridge is the evil you know all too well, so its portrayal is familiar and powerful.  Lusamine hits home in a way that most world-ending villains don’t, so I count her as one of the best villains in the series in that regard.

My problem with Rainbow Rocket isn’t that Giovanni leads, it’s that Giovanni is the only one with a point being there.  The others have no story influence.  Archie and Maxie literally state that Giovanni is just letting them stay there, and Cyrus just wants to go home.  Only Ghetsis has an alternate plan, but his is just jumping on Giovanni’s plan and hoping he can control Giovanni.  Everything hinges on Giovanni.  If you want a celebration of all villain teams, you could’ve easily made a post-game where Looker and Anabel team up with you to take down the Rainbow versions of each organization, which all have their own motives and stories.  Instead, they’re pushed into Giovanni’s without purpose and they all seriously feel neglected.

Necrozma is a problem for the same Voldemort/Umbridge reason above.  Necrozma has a more global impact, but no emotional impact.  It’s just a force of nature that’s a threat in its current state that you have to stop.  Going from a villain that is entirely emotional impact to something that’s just a nebulous enemy with no bearing on the people present feels like a downgrade.

Lusamine is 100% a damsel in distress in the post-game.  She’s unconscious, Giovanni’s trying to turn her into a mindless puppet, and your entire involvement is going in to save her.  She is, by literal definition, a damsel in distress.  And for your first female villain in the series, that’s...really bad.  Especially following SM.

However, I will concede that I hadn’t considered Guzma wanting to fight and beat down UBs as his own reward for tagging along with Lusamine.  So that was an interesting point to read.  I also can’t argue that many of their traits are different across games, but the issue isn’t the traits, it’s utilization of those characters that causes problems for me.

I will also concede that not getting to fight Mother Beast is the greatest disappointment of the century.  I was hoping they’d fix that by having Lusamine fuse with Nihilego to fist-fight Necrozma, but alas, they did not do that.