#scarlet and violet has been GREAT

[min-play]

the new event raid is wild

[front-facing-pokemon]

[funkyjeans]

your papá dresses you up like he's colorblind, doesn't he?

[runicsorceress]

(@works-of-magic) I would absolutely LOVE cute pictures of Perjury, yes please and thank you!

oh shit forgot about this uh.. here have some old photos i took. hopefully theyre enough?

[joshbruh10x]

So, crazy year huh? I might as well gather the "best" art for a summary to this year for each month

Also, my art are all too big and mixed up on portrait and landscape so I'm not using the template for this one, anyhow, here's:

Josh's 2022 Art Summary from Jan-Dec

As I said, crazy year huh? I always liked making these timeline sorta stuff for art, it makes me feel less E H about my art, ya know.

Call me cheesy and stuff but that's what you're gonna get from this ol' mutual of yours. I encourage some small artists like myself to try making the same thing, see how you've improved throughout the year. As a best friend keeps telling me, progress is progress, no matter how big or small

Have a wonderful holidays everyone, and here's to a not shit year (hopefully, :>)

[goldensunset]

I forgot how much of a banger the vs Sada/Turo theme is. prefect music to star at the window and vividly daydream to.

song of Punch Me Repeatedly In The Chest

[stiltonbasket]

what happened when wwx went to gusu summer school in the wrh raises wwx au?

"Thank the heavens," Lan Xichen laughs, when Lan Wangji presents himself at the Hanshi after returning from his latest monthlong night-hunting tour in Huai'an. "Shufu has been at his wits' end in your absence, didi."

Lan Wangji lifts an eyebrow and begins to unpack the basket of tribute gifts he received from the Huai'an magistrate. "Why? My duties were to be delegated to Changyi-tangxiong while I was away; and whatever Shufu might find wanting in his temperament, I have never known him to be anything but diligent."

"No one has dared replace you as head of discipline," his brother says wryly. "And according to Shufu, this batch of guest disciples has worse manners than most."

"Shufu rarely has trouble with the guest disciples," Lan Wangji points out, frowning. The lone exception to this rule was Nie Huaisang; but no one in the Cloud Recesses has ever bothered disciplining Nie Huaisang, even before his older brother was betrothed to Xiongzhang. "Who does he wish me to discipline this time?"

Inexplicably, Lan Xichen only grins at him and scoops a handful of icy-red lychees out of the tribute basket.

"Go to tomorrow's lecture in the Lanshi," he teases, "and perhaps you shall see."

Lan Wangji could not see the sense in this. If one of the guest scholars was being impudent in the Lanshi, Shufu ought to have sent them to the Pavilion of Discipline to receive punishment instead of waiting for him to settle matters; for as Head of Discipline, Lan Wangji's main duties consisted of revising the codex of appropriate punishments and patrolling the Cloud Recesses after hai shi on alternate fortnights.

But the next day, he made his way to the Lanshi as bidden—and the moment he crossed the threshold, he understood exactly who had been making trouble for his uncle, and why he had been left for Wangji to handle.

As ever, all four of the other Great Clans were represented among the guest disciples: Yunmeng Jiang disciples in violet and jade-green, the Jin in cream and gold, Nie Huaisang and his shixiongdi in their familiar black and silver-gray—and by the window, the fiery scarlet and gold of Wen Ruohan's delegation, dressed in silks so fine that they would not have looked out of place upon an imperial concubine.

Lan Wangji narrows his eyes at them. Each one is haughtier than the next, though not quite brazen enough for Shufu to blink at; but then his gaze moves to the disciple sitting at the front, and freezes as the boy rolls his shoulders and turns around to greet Wangji with an insolent, lazy smile.

This is the one, he realizes, as the disciple flutters painted—painted?—lashes at him before turning back to look at Shufu. He is the one Uncle wants me to discipline.

"Wangji," Shufu says, with such open relief that Lan Wangji looks away from the Wen disciple in surprise. "At last. Have you come to attend lessons with the guest disciples?"

Wangji puts his hands together and bows. "Yes, Uncle."

"Excellent. But before you sit down, go take Wei Wuxian to the dormitories, and see that he washes his face and removes those ornaments from his hair."

Lan Wangji nods and takes three great strides towards the Wen disciple. "You heard your laoshi," he says. "Come."

The disciple—Wei Wuxian—gives no reply; but luckily, he rises from his chair and follows Lan Wangji out of the Lanshi without protest. As soon as the doors to the lecture hall fall closed behind them, Lan Wangji opens his mouth to deliver a short lecture on the virtues of modesty and simplicity in dress—only to snap it closed again in shock, for he has never seen a man who painted his face like this outside the theater troupes Xichen used to visit with him when they were children.

Wei Wuxian's lips are a wet, shining crimson, as if he had dipped them in blood before arriving at the Lanshi; and his eyes are lined with fine black paint and red rouge mixed with some kind of bright, sparkling dust. Worse yet, he had even painted his eyelashes, to make them seem twice as long and dark as any man's lashes ought to be—and as if all of that were not enough, the heavy locks of his hair are fastened with chains made of solid gold.

"Why are you looking at me, Lan-er-gongzi?" Wei Wuxian asks. He puts his head to one side, and despite himself, Lan Wangji hears music; for someone had woven small golden bells into Wei Wuxian's braided hair.

"Enough talk," Lan Wangji says flatly. "Follow me back to the dormitories so you can wash and brush out your hair."

To his astonishment, Wei Wuxian does not object. He keeps pace with Lan Wangji all the way to the compound reserved for the Wen disciples; and then, without another word, he vanishes into his lodgings and leaves Lan Wangji behind to wait for him on the porch.

Puzzled, Lan Wangji seats himself on a convenient stool and wonders why Wei Wuxian had obeyed him so easily. It was only too clear that Shufu first tried to teach him the virtues of simple adornments at least a month ago, if not longer; so why had he flouted Uncle's wishes and honored Lan Wangji's?

Perhaps he is being too obedient, says a small voice in the back of Lan Wangji's mind. Perhaps he has run out through the back of the house, and gone off to frolic in Caiyi.

Lan Wangji frowns more deeply than ever and raps on the door with his knuckles. "Wei-gongzi? Are you finished?"

"Nearly," Wei Wuxian calls. "You can come in, if you'd like."

Wangji highly doubts that Wei Wuxian is really making himself presentable (or at least, not as he ought to be doing) so he enters the house and finds his charge wiping his face with a damp towel.

He lowers the towel at the sound of Lan Wangji's footsteps, and then:

"You were not meant to paint yourself in a different fashion," he says, incensed. "Wash your face properly at once."

Wei Wuxian blinks at him in confusion.

"I have washed it off," he says. "Look."

And then he leans forward and grabs Lan Wangji's hand, drawing it up to the damp skin of his face before Lan Wangji can turn tail and flee. He drags Lan Wangji's fingertips over the smooth bones of his cheeks and forehead, and across the bronzen skin circling his eyes—tanned and not painted, Lan Wangji realizes—and presses his full lips to the heart of Lan Wangji's palm, so forcefully that any traces of rouge left upon them would have been imprinted on Wangji's skin.

"There!" Wei Wuxian says, beaming—and completely unaware that Lan Wangji is very near to bursting out of sheer fury. "I'm as clean as a new jian."

"Your hair," Lan Wangji croaks; for if he dared raise his voice any further, he would scream, and then he would be the one submitting himself for punishment at the discipline pavilion. "Comb it."

Wei Wuxian nods and unravels his braids. Rather than undoing them one by one, he merely snaps his fingers and lets out a burst of spiritual energy; and immediately, the gold fastenings fall loose and clatter onto his dressing-table, leaving the glittering mass of his hair to slide down his broad back like a waterfall coursing down the face of a mountain.

Suddenly, Lan Wangji finds himself unable to breathe.

He flings himself out of the guest house and up the hill towards the Jingshi, where he spends an hour meditating in complete silence before he can bring himself to set foot out of doors again.

"Brother," he says, when he finally works up the courage to return to the Hanshi two days later. "I fear that I may be unable to take over the duty of disciplining Wei Wuxian. He made me angrier than I have ever been in my life."

Lan Xichen—who had heretofore shown no signs of being anything other than a kind, understanding brother—only stares at him, and bursts into laughter.

[guybitesatgames]

You, Exalted player. Having trouble naming your new character or NPC? As far back as first edition, you could have fired up Voidstate's Exalted Name Generator* and gotten a couple dozen names, easy, and only a small percentage of them would be "Moon Moon" or "of of of of of". But some time in the past year or so, that site went down and now we're back to naming things by hand.

However.

Courtesy of the Wayback Machine and some minor skullduggery, I've pulled the list of words used to populate that generator. You'll find them, unedited except for formatting**, below the cut. Scroll around and you're sure to find some nouns, adjectives, and verbs that'll make your character or charm name feel sufficiently Exalted-y.

*I am in no way associated with the original creator. I did not make this list; I only seek to preserve it.

**Original spelling has been preserved, because it is possible that (in some cases) archaic spellings were included intentionally. If something looks weird, look it up, use your judgement, blame it on Old Realm.

 Colour

      Alabaster      Amber      Amythest      Ashen      Azure      Black       Bright      Brilliant      Cerulean      Citrine      Crimson      Ebon       Flaxen      Golden      Grey      Pale      Quicksilver      Radiant       Saffron     Scarlet      Shadowy      Silver      Vermillion      Violet       White

   Condition

      Adamant      Blazing      Blind      Celestial      Distant      Drunken       Elder      Empty      Eyeless      Final      First and Forsaken       Flaming      Forsaken      Hidden      Hungry      Invisible      Last       Masked      Ravenous      Secret      Silent      Veiled      Weeping       Whispering

   Emotion-negative

      Bitter      Blighted      Deadly      Death      Dirgeful      Ferocious       Funereal      Grieving      Grievious      Hateful      Poison       Rancourous      Sad      Savage      Sorrowful      Sour      Unrepentant      Vengeful      Venomous      Wrathful

   Emotion-positive

      Auspicious      Benificent      Blessed      Bounteous      Exaltant       Excellent      Flawless      Harmonious      Heavenly       Incomparable      Joyous      Jubilant      Perfect      Sagacious       Silken      Virtuous

   Heroic

      Battleworn      Glorious      Great      Invincible      Mighty       Stalwart      Triumphal      Triumphant      Unconquered       Undefeated      Victorious

   Movement

      Ascending      Descending      Flickering      Flowing      Fluttering       Leaping      Running      Soaring      Still      Towering      Unfettered       Wandering

   Number

      Eighth      Eleventh      Fifth      First      Fourth      Last      Ninth       Number One      Number Ten      One Hundredth              Second      Seventh      Sixth      Ten Thousandth       Tenth      Third      Twentieth One Thousandth

NOUNS

   Animal

      Bat      Bear      Bull      Carp      Coyote      Crane      Cricket      Crow       Dog      Dolphin      Dragon      Eagle      Ghost      Grasshopper       Hyena      Jackal      Leopard      Lion      Locust      Mammoth       Mantis      Monkey      Owl      Ox      Panther      Phoenix      Raiton       Rat      Raven      Scarab      Serpent      Shark      Snake      Spider       Tiger      Viper      Vulture      Wolf      Yeddim

   Body Part

      Blood      Claw      Eyes      Face      Finger      Fist      Hand      Heart       Mind      Nail      Silhoutte      Soul      Stance      Tooth      Wing

   Building

      Bier      Catacomb      Citadel      Demesne      Forge      Fortress       Gate      Keep      Kingdom      Labyrinth      Manse      Monastary       Monolith      Obelisk      Pillar      Prison      Rampart      Redoubt       Refuge      Ruin      Spire      Temple      Tomb      Tower      Vault

   Celestial Body

      Cloud      Heaven      Heavens      Horizon      Moon      Rainbow       Sky      Star      Starfall      Sun      Sunrise      Void      Wyld

   Charm General

      Attack      Attitude      Discipline      Evasion      Exercise      Form       Glance      Intuition      Invigoration      Meditation      Method       Prana      Spirit      Stance      Style      Technique      Temper       Understanding

   Charm Combat

      Attack      Block      Blow      Counterattack      Evasion      Fist       Form      Hammer      Kick      Prana      Stance      Strike       Technique      Throw

   Location

      City      Depths      East      Forests      Heavens      Land       Mountains      North      Oceans      Seas      Sky      South       Underworld      Wasteland      Waves      West      Woods

   Metal or Stone

      Bronze      Copper      Granite      Iron      Metal      Obsidian      Onyx      Ore      Steel      Stone

   Natural Object

      Blossom      Boulder      Cliff      Dawn      Day      Dusk      Forest       Frost      Garden      Hill      Ice      Iceflow      Lightning      Lotus       Midnight      Mist      Monsoon      Mountain      Night      Oak       Ocean      Orchid      Paradise      Rainbow      Reed      River     Rose       Skies      Sky      Storm      Thunder      Thunderhead      Tsunami       Twilight      Waterfall      Willow      Wind

   Negative

      Abyss      Anger      Ash      Ashes      Bitterness      Death      Dirge       Dust      Havoc      Loss      Misery      Oblivion      Pain      Plague       Sadness      Vengeance      Venom      Wrath

   Person

      Assassin      Bodhissatva      Bureaucrat      Empress      Guardian       Hero      Hunter      Killer      King      Lord      Lover      Maiden       Master      Prince      Princess      Queen      Sage      Scholar       Tyrant      Warrior

   Precious Material

      Crystal      Diamond      Emerald      Gemstone      Glass      Ivory       Jade      Moonsilver     Oricalchum      Platinum      Ruby       Sapphire      Silk      Soulsteel      Starmetal

   Relation

      Ally      Child      Daimyo      Daughter      Father      Lord      Master        Mother      Ovalisque      Serf      Servant      Slave      Son

   Weapon

      Axe      Blade      Bow      Fist      Gauntlet      Hammer      Knife       Lance      Shield      Spear      Staff      Sword

VERBS

   Destroying

      Breaking      Consuming      Crushing      Destroying      Devouring       Piercing      Scorning      Smashing      Smiting      Stealing       Sundering      Tearing      Thrashing

   Loving

      Esteeming      Glorifying      Kissing      Loving      Praising       Treasuring      Worshipping

[parasolladyansy]

DxP REWRITE - Ansy

Meet Ansy! She’d been traveling around the various regions of the Pokémon world since she was 15. Originally from Cerulean City in Kanto, she spent most of her life in Unova’s coastal towns when she’s not off in another region (see her full timeline here!). Now that she’s married, she’s been traveling with her husband, Ikrit.

While she reached Champion rank in a few regions now, she’s not the strongest battler (often just barely wins lol) & is a bit of a klutz, but cares a lot about her Pokemon. As she got older, her maternal instincts have gotten stronger, as she discovered in her most recent journey through Paldea lol.

Her great-great-grandmother, Mizumi recently gave her the storied Azure Flute & her Froslass, Yukina (as seen in the Scarlet x Violet Epilogue). This comes from the very neat fact that if you have a completed save of Legends Arceus (aka have befriended Arceus), & then make a save in BDSP, you will have the Azure Flute in your room, implying that it’s a family heirloom that has made its way down to you:

Also yes, in-game Ansy got to actually travel with Mizumi’s Froslass via Pokémon Home because I love immersive gameplay (seeing as I literally make these comics / drawings about my experience playing these games lol).

—

UPDATE: As you can see, I decided to update these character profiles with new art, & a cleaner design that allows for more info! If you want to compare / contrast, here’s the older version:

[corgitation]

how to play pokemon games to study japanese

I just started playing pokemon omega ruby in japanese and have been having a great time with it! The language has been surprisingly simple so far, and I've found it a lot easier to get into than animal crossing. I used a few different resources, so here's a guide on how you can play pokemon in Japanese for language learning:

Choosing a pokemon game

I used this video from gamegengo to decide which game to play and ended up with omega ruby. The tldr of his video is choosing a game that you have access to (in Japanese), that's easy to read (graphics quality makes a huge difference for japanese characters), that's in level. He documented his findings here

Access: Emulators, especially on the PC, are great options for older games. This is especially true for games that are region-locked and need a specific Japanese version to play the game in Japanese. Multi-language support wasn't added until pokemon x/y, so anything older needs a JP version game

Readability: characters on switch games look great, 3DS is also very good. DS is good, anything older can be a bit of a challenge

Hiragana, Kanji, Furigana: prior to pokemon black and white, all text was in hiragana. This can be really challenging if you're used to seeing text with kanji, it can make words much harder to recognize. However, furigana has only been added in arceus and scarlet/violet

Level: All of the pokemon games rank between N3 to N2 except for arceus, which is N2 to N1. I am studying for N3 and am not having much trouble with omega ruby, although I am slow at reading and this is one of the easiest rated games. Someone who is a complete beginner would struggle a lot with these games depending on the amount of reading they intend to do (you don't really need to read to be able to play pokemon)

2. Game resources

There are a variety of resources to help make playing video games in japanese easier. Normally, I would like to just play the game and absorb the content without having to look up a lot of it. Unfortunately, since most pokemon games don't include furigana and aren't voice acted, there is no way to learn how to read a word with kanji you don't know other than to look it up.

Poke Corpus: amazing tool for querying text dumps from different pokemon games. Select the game you're playing and the language, and then write a query with some of the text from a sentence you want to look up. Works great, keep in mind the search is exact (including spacing). It also shows results from other languages, so in addition to pulling all the text for lookup you can see the english translation (which is localized, so is not always a direct translation)

Yomitan: a japanese pop-up dictionary browser extension. Very helpful if you ever read japanese on a computer. I used this video for getting it set up. Very customizable with different dictionaries

Game2Text (PC only): if you're playing a game on an emulator on your computer, this is a great tool for grabbing the text straight from the game. Additionally, since this works inside a browser, any browser extensions (like yomitan) work with this.

Google translate lens: I really don't like this, because it isn't going to be as accurate and it won't show you individual word translations, it will just blur out and translate the entire sentence. But works in a pinch

[pigdemonart]

So Scarlet and Violet's Indigo disk dlc has introduced Lacey (Beautiful perfect angel) and it's implied she is Clay's daughter

What do you there relationship is like? Do you think Clay whould be a good dad?

hahaha i have been tweeting about this actually. First link is a joke, but you should still click it lol

I always thought of Clay as an unofficial father of the region, so YEAH!! The news made perfect sense to me! I do believe its been confirmed also and it’s not just implied.

I ramble about clay for paragraphs:

I like to imagine Lacey and Clay have a good relationship. We can see from her design, she is wearing hair clips that match the gems Lian and Clay wear, which is super cute! Confirmed family tradition, like I theorized hehe!

Clay seems like the kind of dad that is blunt and straight to the point, but would spoil and support wholeheartedly! He’s a “down to earth” (haha) pragmatic kind of guy, telling everyone the hard truths when they need to hear it and not mincing words. Like you’re a kid when you meet him and he’s like whats up dummy, you fucked up. I imagine Lacey is fully used to this attitude and doesn’t get phased by it much. She probably tells people with a wave of a hand that her dad is actually quite nice, you just gotta cut through the hard exterior first.

I like to imagine Lacey got her drilbur (excadrill) from her dad (maybe a starter) but not just as a gift — she had to prove that she was ready to be a trainer! And she did, because she’s Clay’s daughter and Lian’s descendant so nice as she looks she must be headstrong as shit.

Like I can’t see Clay being a pushover dad, even if we imagine he calls Lacey petnames like “princess.” Personally, I always saw Clay as a little chivalrous with girls and femmes, in that Southern cowboy kind of way. I’m sure that comes through whenever he is decidedly softer with his own daughter.

Also Lacey lives in Nimbasa and uses fairy type, so she is clearly a kid that has her own ambitions and dreams. Which is why I imagine (if she has good relationship with her dad) that Clay must fully support it. Rocks and mining have been in the family since Lian’s time, so it’s possible she isn’t really interested in inheriting Clay’s business and has different goal for herself. Maybe there was some tension with this and maybe they butted heads, but I’m sure it could be worked out.

Would be cool to imagine her as the future Fairy type gym leader of Unova. That being said, I don’t think she’s against or ashamed of it. Her hair clips prove she’s proud of her origins after all!!

Also Clay sent his little girl to this new fancy shmancy school UNDER THE OCEAN, and sure its a little flashy, but he cares about her being educated and kicking other kids’ ass. Before she left he was probably like “give ‘em hell!” and she furrowed her bushy eyebrows like >:)))

Now ahem…obviously I still ship Clay x Drayden, this hasn’t really changed anything for me LOL in fact it makes it very interesting, because Drayden also has a confirmed grandson. Old man yaoi is still old man yaoi even if they’re bisexual, but also surrogates are a thing, not to mention divorce arc maybe??? All great, big fan. 👍

Tldr: YEa HE’S A COOL DAD.

[gmax-centiskorch]

Mainline Pokémon Games Based on How Buggy They Are: A Thread

Red, Blue, & Yellow

Pretty buggy. The Butterfree line set the stage for regional bugs and emotional trauma. Everybody loves Scyther. Inspired use of Cordyceps when designing the Parasect line. Kabuto and Kabutops should have been Bug to honor trilobites for founding Arthropoda. 8/10.

Gold, Silver, & Crystal

Yes, we had Scyther, but what about second Scyther? Scizor, Heracross, and Shuckle are legends. Game Freak decided to invite arachnids (Spinarak and Ariados) to the party, truly redefining what it means to be buggy. 9/10.

Ruby, Sapphire, & Emerald

This generation is loaded with bugs! Game Freak realized their mistake in not giving the Kabutops line Bug typing, making up for it with Anorith and Armaldo (who are based on Anomalocaris). They fumble the recovery, however, in not only depriving the Flygon line of Bug typing, but forever making them second fiddle to the Salamence line. The Beautifly, Dustox, and Ninjask lines introduce some interesting approaches to Bug-type evolution. Volbeat and Illumise are there. 7.8/10.

Diamond, Pearl, & Platinum

DELELELELELEWHOOOOOOP! A smaller collection of bugs this gen, but a well-rounded one. Vespiquen slays. Scorpions get some love via Skorupi, Drapion, and Gliscor. Writing this post is making me realize that slugs, snails, and nudibranchs like the Magcargo and Gastrodon lines aren’t bugs. We grew up thinking snails were bugs, right? Anyway, Yanmega rules. 8/10.

Black, White, Black 2, White 2

Game Freak’s magna opera. Truly the buggiest games there are. While you have to wait until Pinwheel Forest to encounter your first bugs, you’re rewarded upon arrival with Sewaddle and Venipede, the larvae of the Leavanny and Scolipede lines. From there, you encounter the Crustle, Galvantula, and Volcarona lines. Game Freak has some more fun with Bug evolutions, having Karrablast steal Shelmet’s armor as they evolve into Escavalier and Accelgor (inspired by the real-world interactions between the ground beetle family Carabidae and the gastropods they feed on). Durant is our first proper ant, and we get our first (and only . . . ) legendary / mythical Bug in Genesect. These games made Bug my favorite type. 10/10.

X & Y

A big step down from the previous generation. This game hardly has any bugs. Do you like butterflies? You get a butterfly. Vivillon is a lovely butterfly that comes in all sorts of colors, but SURELY there are more bugs than that in France. 6/10.

Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun, Ultra Moon

Giant isopods! Diving bell spiders! Giraffe stag beetles! A true return to form. While the native bugs of Alola are great, we are also introduced to the ultra beasts, two of which (Buzzwole and Pheromosa) are really cool bugs. It seems they were going for wasps and bee flies when designing the Naganadel and Ribombee lines, but they don’t really work for me. Faint blemishes on an otherwise buggy generation. 8.5/10.

Sword & Shield

Centiskorch is the greatest Pokémon ever made. I have them tattooed on my arm. Blipbug is the worst Pokémon ever made. I see them in my nightmares. Interesting that they’re both Bug Pokémon, and that Game Freak really min-maxed with them. Fortunately, Blipbug evolves into Dottler and Orbeetle, who are great. Snom has a place in everyone’s heart, and Frosmoth is elegant as can be. 9.5/10.

Scarlet & Violet

I love Rellor and Rabsca! I . . . don’t really love the rest! Iron Moth and Slither Wing are great, but they’re nepo babies. Tarountula and Nymble are nice, but Spidops and Lokix leave something to be desired. Orthworm is a a big worm. At the end of the day, these games would be alright if they weren’t so wonkily coded and glitchy. Wish there was a better word for that. 7/10.

[1863-project]

I’m not so sure the younger players starting out with Scarlet and Violet will appreciate the nuance of a character like Larry, because they haven’t had to fight for their survival in a capitalist society yet - at that age, their guardians are still fighting the fight for them.

But as an adult in my 30s, that shit hits HARD. I remember my time in grad school, where at one point I was simultaneously a full-time student, had an internship, and was working a job on the weekends. I went literal months without seeing my friends that semester. I was lonely and miserable and kept getting sick. I was doing something I loved in grad school and at my internship - archiving - but the job (a gig as a tour guide at a historic site) was sucking the life out of me. When I finally got out of that job and started applying to archival positions, my parents actually commented on how the tour guide work had been slowly killing me.

Spoilers for Scarlet and Violet below the cut.

Larry has a job he absolutely despises, probably because he felt like he had to get one to survive, because being a Pokemon trainer often doesn’t pay the bills - in fact, we do frequently see Gym Leaders in this franchise (and even Champions, in the case of Cynthia - an archaeologist - and Steven - the scion to a business) working actual jobs. It’s not lucrative and it’s not necessarily something you can survive on doing alone. Even my favorite characters in the franchise, Ingo and Emmet, run a public transit system alongside a battle facility. It’s the former that’s likely keeping their rent paid.

Larry has distinct skill as a battler - indeed, he’s both a Gym Leader and a member of the Elite Four, specializing in a different type for each (though with a Staraptor on both teams) - and he also has a distinct Poke Ball throw reminiscent of a sidearm pitcher’s windup (see here and here for more on that). But he also talks about his actual job, which he distinctly hates, and how he hopes the player character doesn’t have to use Facade in real life. Larry’s passions lie elsewhere - perhaps in Pokemon battling, or perhaps even in a potential baseball career cut short, if his throw is anything to go by - but capitalism forced him to take an office job, and he is miserable. It’s a distinct misery you understand once you’ve had a job eat you alive and leave you next to no time for your passions - or if it does leave you that time, it exhausts you so much that you can’t do them anyway.

He hasn’t lost his kindness, though - he treats the player character to dinner, and when you battle Nemona on even footing once you’re both at Champion Rank and all the Gym Leaders come to watch, he’s in the back, but he still takes time out of his schedule to make it. He’s doing his best despite being broken down by his job. And so many of us have been there, especially now that those of us who have played since Red and Blue are now in our 30s and 40s.

The kids whose first game is Scarlet or Violet might not quite get it yet. But for those of us who wrangle with capitalism on a daily basis, Larry hits too close to home, and it makes him a great character.

(I also suspect he might be an allusion to Game Freak’s employees being overworked by TPCi, but that’s a post for another day.)

[would-this-pokemon-be-a-friend]

hm... ribombee?

Gardeners rejoice! Ribombees would make great pets for anyone who has the means to provide them with the resources they need for their lifestyle.

It goes without saying, but ribombees are relatively itty bitty at only eight inches tall. Mobility won’t be an issue in even the smallest of homes, since these little pokémon spend most of the time flying around anyway. That doesn’t mean, however, that they don’t require a specialized sort of space to be happy and healthy.

Ribombees are pollinators who seek out flowers for their pollen, which they can use for numerous purposes (Sun). It is fairly likely that a ribombee, if prevented from taking part in this instinctual behavior, may develop behavioral or even health issues and lash out. Luckily, there’s two main ways to get around this as a pet owner. For one, if you have a green thumb, you could keep a flower garden at home for your ribombee to gather pollen from. Exactly how much pollen a single ribombee will need is unknown, so it’s possible that you may need a large and diverse garden, but that may not be an issue for people who already have an affinity for gardening. Alternatively, you could let your ribombee freely gather pollen from the wider area around your home. Like real-world bees, ribombees make home bases in which they can rest when the weather is bad and which they can return to after gathering pollen (Ultra Sun). Real-world bees sometimes travel far distances for pollen without getting lost from their home hive. The only concern with this would be your ribombee’s safety. While their free pollination may be great for the environment in the area where you live, they may be at risk of being snatched up by hungry flying pokémon. Ribombees can certainly protect themselves in some situations, as we’ll get into later, but you wouldn’t be able to guarantee their safety. All that being said, you do have options when it comes to providing ribombees with the pollen they need.

If you live somewhere where it rains a lot, I might reconsider adopting a ribombee. These pokémon hate the rain and are great at detecting when its on its way: when a ribombee detects that rain is coming based on the air’s moisture and direction, they will hide in a tree hollow or other home base until the skies have been cleared for days (Ultra Sun, Ultra Moon). In regions that get a lot more rain, like the Galar Region, wild ribombees are rarely seen (Shield).

On a brighter note, ribombees are exceptionally friendly. They are great judges of when someone is feeling down, with an uncanny ability to sense mood, and delight in cheering people up with their pollen puffs (Scarlet). Like I said earlier, ribombees’ pollen puffs serve multiple purposes. One purpose (and perhaps the primary one) is as food for themselves (Sun). The kind of pollen puffs they offer to humans as gifts are highly valuable as they not only help relieve fatigue: they’re highly nutritious (Moon, Violet). This indicates that ribombees may even make great service or emotional support pokémon for people who struggle with energy and mood.

Also like I said earlier, ribombees can protect themselves, to a certain extent. A third use of their pollen puffs is in combat (Sun). Ribombees can use specialized pollen puffs to paralyze with the move Stun Spore or damage them with concussive force using their signature move Pollen Puff. Ribombees can also make use of bug and fairy-type staples such as Bug Buzz and Draining Kiss to deal out damage to enemies. Luckily, this species does not appear to be particularly violent to humans. If their behavior is similar to real-world bees, you shouldn’t have an issue most of the time so long as you don’t mess with them or their home. Even in a bad situation, this species isn’t likely to be deadly anyways, with the exception of health conditions that could be exasperated by paralysis.

Overall, so long as you are able to allow your ribombee to engage in their pollinating instincts, they would make great and even beneficial pets.

[pokemonshelterstories]

//Can I ask what made you like Scarlet/Violet so much to start a blog with a character based on it? :o I absolutely LOVED the open world nature of the game (it’s one of the many things that endeared me to SwSH actually!), as well as the more iconic Mons like LeChonk, but outside of that, S/V always just felt… rushed? It felt really incomplete to me, more like a quick cash grab for the upcoming holiday (at least, moreso than normal), and the way they handled the legendaries felt weird too. I know the fandom is notorious for complaining about Pokemon games that aren’t like, gen 1-3, but I really do mean this in a curious way! Since it wasn’t the game for me, I’d love to know what made others like it so hopefully I can like it too!

//it was more a matter of timing than anything else. charlie actually started out as a steel-type trainer that i used as my player avatar for steel-type runs of games, then slowly morphed into a general pokemon care expert. my original blog idea long before pokemon irl became as popular as it is now was actually for a keeper at the fuchsia city zoo! but i never ended up following through with it. the rpm discord just happened to start up right as SV had come out, so when i tossed charlie in there, it was convenient to throw her there.

SV is far from my favorite pokemon game, but one thing i do really enjoy about it is the amount of history we know of paldea and the amount of worldbuilding i'm able to do around the great crater. charlie's role as a researcher of the great crater and a keeper of a paramon arose from my curiosity about the biology of these pokemon (fun fact, in the rpm discord she actually has interacted briefly with one of the koraidon- but that's not the sort of thing she'd blog about)

personally with the past couple of pokemon games i've felt like you have to find your fun a little bit. they've had so many features, not all of which are integrated well, so i find it's most fun to pick something that you really like and explore that as much as possible. for me, that's always been shiny hunting more than battling or exploring, so that's mostly what i do when i play SV.

[foxzutheone]

UHHHH KITAKAMI KITAPARK AU OR SOMETHING

very based on indigo park (more like indigo DISK /j)

Kitapark is an AU of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet DLC that is based on Kitapark (and game theory's one lore video but shhhh)

Kitapark was made by the Kitakami company which makes a mix of both movies and video games. They make an AI assistant called Kieran the Furret, who has been the pride and joy of the brand for over 100 years.

However, when the redesigns of the main cast (Ogrepon, Pecharunt, The Loyal Three, Carmine, and Kieran) eventually arrive, Carmine finds herself with such a well liked design that it overshadows the once great Kieran, turning him bitter towards her and her image.

There are secrets that the park holds, however.

Animal experiments meant to reshape normal animals into their mascots took place under the resort, twisting them into nightmare versions of the beloved characters to cut costs of the regular costumes.

However, they were vastly mistreated. Stuffed in cages and controlled by high-pitched sounds to make them do what the company wanted. One mascot in particular did NOT stand for this. That mascot was Pecharunt, who rises against the humans in "The Incident". All staff and guests who were present at the park died at day, with Kieran trying his best to help everyone escape. He got stuck at the entrance, unfortunately. The park was abandoned as a result, leaving Kieran tied to the gate all alone.

8 years later, the sister of the lead scientist Juliana, Florian, appears at the park to investigate what REALLY happened the day after he quit. Maybe Kieran holds the answers to the company's dark secrets, but first, Florian will have to help him rebuild the park!

--------

Each of the experiments came from regular animals (pokemon don't exist), and they are all organic creatures that were biologically mutated to conform to the mascot's image.

Mascot Carmine - Wolf. The original mascot Carmine is based off of a Mightyena, so a wolf would be the most sensible.

Mascot Kieran (not final and may be scrapped entirely) - Racoon.

Mascot Ogrepon - Parrot

Mascot Pecharunt - Peach fruit. The company wanted to test how effective plants would be as opposed to animals.

Mascot Okidogi - Black Akita

Mascot Munkidori - Japanese Macaque

Mascot Fezandipiti - Secretary Bird

Additional Info:

Carmine was also developed as an AI assistant before Kieran, but was never finalized; serving as the beta for Kieran's AI. However, due to her rapid success, they scrambled to finish the beta AI to replace Kieran.

However, the incident halted their progress before it could be released, and Carmine stood unfinished in the depths of the park in complete darkness.