#so i've been playing pokemon black cause people say it's good

[madame-fall]

I should play Ace Attorney again

[luesmainblog]

i'm not gonna reply directly to the post because i don't wanna get into a bunch of shit, but i was surprised to see a mutual i respect reblog it, so i'll say this much. the reason people in bdsm didn't like 50 shades of grey was not as simple as "this is harmful". they didn't like it because it was an innaccurate portrayal of bdsm - or, more accurately, a portrayal of how bsdm can be used as an excuse to abuse - that was CLAIMING to be ACCURATE, GOOD BSDM. the problem wasn't the content itself, the problem was that anytime a criticism was brought up, you were accused of not being able to handle the spice, and the author was CONSTANTLY insisting that what her character did was totally fine and he definitely wasn't Like That. yes, we SHOULD have bare minimum standards of kink, but that doesn't mean "fictional depictions of abuse as kink are automatically harmful". it's about the context and attitude you're entering with, just like any other media. what matters is the conversation around it, not the content itself. Let's all remember that Lolita's biggest problem was readers viewing it as a romance, when the author was certain any sane reader would know how awful the situation was. and i've said it before but it bears repeating until this becomes common sense again: equating fictional abuse, even romanticized, to real abuse causes more harm than its existance does. equating lolicon to actual fucking child molestation is a massive disservice to CSA victims. equating anime twincest to the actual real life abuse of incest lessens the impact the word has for real situations. and i REALLY shouldn't have to say this, but telling a black person that they can't partake in raceplay is SIGNIFICANTLY more racist than anything they're gonna be agreeing to.

and whenever someone tries to give praise to weird and problematic kinks, or talks about how fictional darkness can't hurt you any further than you can hurt yourself with it, or anything remotely related, somebody always comes in with "um okay i agree unless its pedo shit", and we KNOW you mean the fictional stuff. you ALWAYS mean the fictional stuff. and i'm sorry, but no. if nobody was harmed unconsentually in the making of this god damn fanfic then you can just walk away. any argument you try to make for why it's actually Too Harmful To Be Allowed is going to use the same logic that christian moms use to say that pokemon is DEFINITELY going to make your child a satanist. yes, some people can use fiction to cause or perpetuate harm. authors can convince their fans that some fucked up shit is okay, abusers can use ANYTHING to build trust and convince their victims that what they're doing is fine, and people with little self-control can use things that trigger them to emotionally self-harm. all of this is true, and deserves to be talked about and considered. but if you can handle the idea that the majority of people playing violent video games every day are not actually violent people and will react negatively to real world violence, and can enjoy the mayhem they cause in-game while also being aware of how bad it is in real life, and SOME people being inspired to violence does not mean we should ban those games entirely, you can apply the same to kink. even the shit you find abhorrent. to be very frank, we shouldn't HAVE to bring up the therapeutic benefits to victims of real crimes for you to be consistent in your beliefs on censorship. edit: also pointed out to me and extremely important: "pedo shit" is EXACTLY how queer stuff is painted by conservative censors. it is one of the oldest arguments they have. so YES, the best way to immunize ourselves from allowing gays to be censored because too many people find them gross and immoral, is to get used to there being fictional csa depictions even if you find them gross and immoral. your disgust and fear that somebody MIGHT be hurt by it or MIGHT be taking it the wrong way is not, and has never been, a good reason to remove it. again: if no actual people have been harmed in its creation, then it should be allowed. we're obviously not defending actual CSEM here, that is irrefutable harm. we're defending the stupid fetishized anime shit that helps the people who went through that process and move forward.

[scarletsaphire]

Mikey has been the DM for his Dungeons and Dragons group for ages. But that changes today; the local game store is holding an event, which means that he is finally going to get to play! The sorry sucker that's been assigned their DM, named Edgar, will have no idea what hit them.

---

And the other definitely not forgotten one @phantasycentral

"Are you excited?" Nathan asked as he walked down the street next to Mikey, holding his folder close to his chest.

"Am I excited," Mikey repeated in a mocking tone. "Of course I am! I've been stuck as you lot's dungeon master for five years now. Finally, I'll be able to be a player and join in your game ruining shenanigans!"

"Hey!" Caroline said. "We don't ruin any of the games."

"Yea," the other Nathan, or Nate as the gang tended to call him, added. "We enhance it!"

Mikey stopped in his walking to turn and look Nate in the eye. "You caused a black hole by sling-shotting a bag of holding into another bag of holding, ending the big bad instantly, and causing a TPK. On session four."

"Ok, but it's your fault we had two bags of holding," Nathan argued.

"It was not!" Mikey protested. "You guys are the ones who broke into the Grand Wizards Tower the second it was introduced, and then robbed him blind when he tried to stop you!"

"I mean," Caroline said, "You are the one who gave him two bags of holding."

"He made them!" Mikey was nearly yelling at this point. "He was the maker of like, all the enchanted items in the land, of course he'd have two bags of holding!"

"Still your fault," Nate said.

Mikey tugged at his hair. "This is exactly why I am so excited this event is happening. If I have to run one more game with you dunderheads as my party I'm going to lose my mind."

"I thought you already lost your mind when I made that Tabaxi?" Caroline asked, grinning deviously in a way that she only ever did around them. She was normally very self concious about her braces, but apparently bashing orcs heads in with a great axe made for great bonding experiences.

"Oh yea, that one that could run like, 300 feet in a turn!" Nathan said. "I remember that! You ran circles around that Dragonborn, literally!"

"I did!" she preened. "And I distinctly remember you saying that it was the final nail in the coffin of what was left of your sanity."

"I got it back," Mikey sniffed. "Because I'm just better like that."

"If you were than you wouldn't get so hung up on us just having some fun with your games," Nate said, elbowing Mikey in the side.

"Whatever," Mikey grumbled. "Hopefully, whoever is our DM for this event is someone really good, and our schedules will line up, and they can take the curse of Forever DM away from me."

"Well, we're about to find out," Nathan said, coming to a stop in front of the game store. "You all ready?" The group traded determined nods, and made their way into the building.

It was populated, but not full. A number of people were sitting at fold out table in the rear end of the store, just visible through the shelves of board games, RPG books, and fancy dice. A middle aged man stood behind the counter, helping a young woman buying a pack of Pokemon cards. He waved to the lot of them when they came in briefly, before returning to the transaction. They all hovered at the counter, waiting for him to be finished.

It didn't take long before the woman was happily on her way out, Pokemon cards in hand, and the man turned to the four of them. "Howdy folks!" he said, voice thick with a southern accent. "Y'all here for the D&D stuff I take it?"

"Uh, yea," Mikey said, shuffling his feet awkwardly. "We uh. We signed up online?"

"Yup, most did," he said. "My name's Chris, I run this place with my sister. Give me just a second to pull up the list and..." Chris clicked a few buttons on his computer. "Ok, it looks like you'll be playing with Edgar. He's the fella in the purple jacket, right back there." Chris nodded his head towards the back, where, just as described, a man sat at the head of one of the empty fold out tables, a DM screen in front of him and a play mat stretched out across the table.

"Ok," Mikey said. "Uh, thank you!" With that, he led the group the rest of the way into the game store. Edgar looked nice enough; he was on the paler side, with dark black hair and a well kept goatee. He had also set up the map pretty well, at least from Mikey's perspective; most of it was covered with papers, which he presumed would be removed while they explored. When the three of them approached the table, Edgar looked up and smiled at them.

"Aw yes, you must be my adventurers!" he said. "I'm Edgar, and I'll be the story writer for the evening. I assume you have all created characters for the evening?"

Mikey and the rest of the group gave a variety of affirmatives, as they all took their seats at the table. "Do you want to take a look at our character sheets before we get started?" Nathan asked, pulling the paper out and holding it out to Edgar. 

Edgar waved the paper away. "There's no need. I'm sure I will become... properly acquainted with all of your characters by the end of this story. Now, are you all ready to start? I promise, it will be an adventure to die for."

Mikey caught Caroline's eyes from across the table. She looked nervous. They all did; none of them were exactly what would be described as sociable, outgoing people, so it was only natural that they'd all have some kind of social anxiety in this situation, but there was something off about Edgar. Something about the way that he spoke...

Mikey took a deep breath. His mom had been getting on his case lately, about needing to get out of his comfort zone more. She probably meant to start playing a sport or something, but this counted. Maybe Edgar was just as nervous and socially awkward as they were, and just had an odd way of saying it? "We're ready," Mikey said. 

"Wonderful. Then let us begin."

---

Mikey couldn't say at what point during the exposition things started to get weird. Edgar was a very good storyteller, so for a while, it just seemed like he was painting a very vivid picture of the forest laid out before them, vivid enough that Mikey could see the towering trees and dappled sunlight on the ground. And then he could smell the clear, cool air, and hear the bird song and the wind rustling in the leaves, and feel the dirt on the ground beneath his leather boots, and Mikey was no longer just Mikey, he was Erdri, his dragonborn paladin. 

"What..." Nathan, a half-elf cleric named Vaeril. "What happened? How are we..."

"Ok cool so I'm not just going crazy," Nate said. His spoke with a lisp, his half-orc tusks making the softer sounds of Common awkward. 

"Not unless we all are," Caroline replied. Mikey almost missed her; she was a halfling rogue, which made her very, very easy to miss. "You don't think..."

"That I was a ghost?" It was Edgar's voice, coming from a squirrel in the trees. "If you didn't, you'd be wrong. You can call me Ghost Writer, and I've decided to play my hand at this new form of collaborative story telling. You will be my test group! How lucky you are."

Nate drew his great-axe from behind his back. "You let us go right now! You won't get away with this!" 

"Oh, none of that," Ghost Writer replied. "If you won't play fair, than neither will I." Nate tripped and fell face first on the ground, the great-axe flying from his hand. "All you have to do is finish this adventure. That's what you agreed to do, is it not?"

"Not like this!" Nathan complained.

"Tomato, tomato," Ghost Writer said. "You agreed, and now you have to see the story to the end. Be careful! I'm not planning on going easy on you." The squirrel lost the imprint of Ghost Writer's features, returning to existence as a completely regular squirrel.

"We're gonna die," Caroline said, just above a whisper. "We're totally going to die!"

"No, we're not," Mikey said. The strength in his voice surprised him. "We're going to win."

"How can you say that?" Nate asked, brushing the dirt off of his face. "We've never done anything like this before!"

"Yes, we have! We've been playing Dungeons and Dragons for years. You all are experts at breaking a DM's story, and I know all the tips and tricks about DMing that there is to know. This "Ghost Writer" won't know what hit him."

"Ok," Nathan said, taking a deep breath. "Ok. I believe you. But why the hell do I believe you."

"I rolled like, an 18 in charisma."

"That'll do it."

"Onwards and upwards?" Nate held his hand out between the four of them. 

One by one they all added their hands to the stack. 

"Onwards and upwards!" They said the cheer unanimously, throwing their hands up in the air. Together, they made their way deeper into the forest, where adventure awaits.

[lepoppeta]

REVIEWING MAINLINE POKEMON GAMES (Gen3 - Gen9)

I'm bored - let's review my favourite game franchise! I wrote this in a bit of a whirlwind, so please excuse any typos or odd wording! If I find anything I will fix it as time goes on.

I will not be including Legends Arcues or Let's Go! in this line-up.

WARNING: I rag on Gen4 (DPP and HGSS) a fair amount in this review. If you have a lot of love and nostalgia for Gen4, that's great! I'm not attacking you personally! Please don't spend your time writing angry paragraphs in the comments about why I'm wrong! You will not change my mind!

#1. BLACK / WHITE - Unova is probably my favourite region (which hurts to say; I'm a Hoenn girl, born and bred). It has so many of my favourite Pokemon in its 'dex (Chandelure, Krookodile, Volcarona, need I go on?); it has one of my favourite rivals (Bianca); it presents an interesting, open-ended moral dilemma within the Pokemon universe that doesn't really have a good answer; it has great music; it has a ton of memorable characters.

Also - unlimited TMs? Uhh... yes please! Gen5 introduced something that took some of the hoarding anxiety out of Pokemon and I will forever sing its praises for that.

Weird side note, but I loved the UI for BW; that weird monochrome high-tech display with the futuristic computer-like noises whenever you pressed a button or touched the screen really 'scratched my brain good', y'know?

#2. X / Y - If Unova is my favourite region, then Gen6 has to be my favourite generation from a mechanical perspective. I love both Pokemon Amie and the Super Training functions, both for their game-breaking, anime-esque battle mechanics and also because I was able to understand and actually access competitive battling for the first time due to the continuation of Gen5's unlimited TM system and the Super Training App's progress bar.

Mega Evolution will always be my favourite battle mechanic - the idea was so cool when it was first announced and I had a ton of fun with it while playing for the first time. It's so badass. And you know what? I really don't mind the change to the EXP Share. I got used to it very quickly and even when I had it turned out I still found the game to be a bit difficult in some places.

Also... don't hate me... but I kind of like Lysandre as a villain. I know, I know, many people don't, but I have a soft spot for antagonists whose whole mantra seems to be 'good intentions but they went too far'. Team Flare themselves are kind cringe though, I won't lie.

#3. EMERALD - I am so, so thankful Emerald was my first ever Pokemon game. I'm so thankful that I chose Mudkip as my starter; I couldn't have asked for a better partner as I fumbled through the game for the first time at the tender age of 9.

Emerald holds so many dear memories for me. It's soundtrack is, in my humble opinion, the best GameFreak has produced, from the beautiful, waltzing Surf theme to the encroaching terror of Victory Road. Steven was also my very first fictional crush and remains as such (sue me).

I will admit that where Emerald (and Hoenn in general) looses out is that, outside of Steven Stone (and possibly also Norman), none of the boss characters feel particularly memorable. Emerald also simply suffers from the lack of QOL improvements that later generations have. Strangely, I find it much faster to play than any of the Gen4 games.

#4. SWORD / SHIELD - This game used to rank much lower, but I've grown to appreciate it a lot more within the past few months.

I will be honest: I like it less for what it is as a product and more for how creative it's caused me to be when thinking about worldbuilding within the Pokemon universe. The Gym Challenge narrative switch-up was an interesting and refreshing shake-up for the series; the rivals and boss characters were memorable. The Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra DLCs are also great fun.

SWSH introduced the Box Link, which has been the best change the series has made alongside unlimited-use TMs and the Ride Pager in Gen7.

That being said, SWSH also half-removes the unlimited TM mechanic, which was frustrating. I'm also not a big fan of raid-style fights in any video game - I find them to be very stressful and needlessly hard. Gigantamaxing I also found to be a really weak battle mechanic. SWSH also has the weakest starter set for me. Inteleon is my favourite, of course, but it's the best of a bad lot.

#5. OMEGARUBY / ALPHASAPPHIRE - In my opinion this is the best remake that GameFreak has done (outside of two glaring issues). The characters have had a much-needed redesign; dialogue and story beats have been updated; the feel of the original game is still there alongside the QOL improvements from XY and Gen6 as a whole.

The aforementioned 'glaring issues' are as follows: the Battle Frontier is missing, and the fact that the games are based off of Ruby and Sapphire and not Emerald. And no, that isn't just the nostalgia talking; plenty of other people I've noticed have made similar comments about this game and also BDSP (which we'll get to later)

I wouldn't be so bothered by the Battle Frontier being gone (because the original RS didn't have it either) if GameFreak hadn't decided to put that little sign near the Battle Maison that said "Battle Frontier under construction". It felt like a nasty cop-out and it actually put me off of replaying the game for years, right up until I successfully Nuzlocked it.

#6. SCARLET / VIOLET - I have so many mixed feelings about this game that it pretty much ranks exactly in the middle of all of the games I've played. SV is plagued by its countless bugs and poorly executed open world, but its characters and story shine so brightly that it very nearly balances things out (the battle themes also slap). SV was also the first time where I felt like the main game was long enough and had enough resources to where I could truly experiment with my team; I rotated a selection of monsters out pretty much throughout the whole game, and I really appreciate SV for giving me that freedom.

Outside of the bugs, I also find the online raid battles to be stupidly difficult; I nearly drove myself to tears because of the Samurott raid that I'd worked so hard for and got nothing out of. I'm a very casual player for Pokemon, so it really bugged me that one of the few times I actually tried to do something a bit more competitively inclined of my own accord I was shot down repeatedly by an AI that was basically built to cheat.

This game also proved to me that GameFreak can't do a fully-open world properly, and I'm dreading the possibility of the next mainline game also being open world (and before you say anything - no, PLA is not open-world, it's open-pocket, and I wish that was the route that GameFreak went with because it worked so much better). I heard many people get irritated by SWSH heavily railroading you, but the game's environment was rich and beautiful despite its linearity. SV is big in a way that allows for GameFreak to boast about how big their dick game is and then not do anything with it: towns are separated by endless stretches of bland grass and rock; the towns themselves are lifeless props without any buildings to explore or interesting people to talk to; storefronts are reduced to a menu screen instead of having actual interiors.

Another irritation I have is that the game was marketed in a way that made it out to be that the player could do anything in any order they wanted, which ended up being untrue; Gyms and wild Pokemon don't level scale based on the number of Badges you have and one of the Titans (which, might I add, are just re-flavoured Totem Pokemon) is completely blocked off unless you've obtained the Herba Mystica that allows you to surf first.

Also that sandwich game looks atrocious. It's useful, sure, but... eugh.

#7. BLACK2 / WHITE2 - I've heard many people praise the ever-loving snot out of this game for being 'the best underrated Pokemon game ever made', but just like with HGSS... I'll have to disagree, if only from a personal basis. In my opinion, Black and White didn't need a sequel, and although this game isn't bad, it isn't exactly great.

I found B2W2 to be a regression of its predecessor. It turns a thought-provoking moral dilemma into the same-old 'I will wake this legendary Pokemon and unleash havoc upon the world and its idiots for wronging me'; Ghetsis is just a copy-paste of Cyrus to me. Too many times I found myself being railroaded by annoying extra content (Join Avenue, the Film Studio, etc.).

I also found the game to be a complete and total slog. BW is pretty grind-heavy, don't get me wrong, but it saves the majority of its heavy-handed level curves for the post game, where you don't have to feel as pressured by it.

GameFreak also completely got rid of Route 10, which had my favourite route track on it. That's just a personal gripe, though.

#8. PLATINUM - This was my first ever Nintendo DS game and also the first game I ever watched a walkthrough for on YouTube (shout-out to Marriland - you were a huge part of my childhood), so it holds some room in my heart, and it definitely ranks the highest out of all of the Gen4 games on this list. Unfortunately, like Emerald, it suffers from pre-Gen5 syndrome with a lack of QOL improvements (although it was a massive step up from the mess that was DP), and, like all Gen4 games, it's slow as hell.

I also ranked this game pretty low purely because of petty reasons. See, people talk about 'Gen Wunners' being annoying, but since I've never played Gen1-2 or have befriended people that have (I think I'm a little too young), I've never really had that problem. That being said, I think people who had Gen4 be their introduction to Pokemon are just as if not more annoying. I think it's got something to do with the fact that DP and Platinum had a lot of players that weren't Pokemon fans; I remember having friends in school that owned a copy of one of those three games and they'd never touched a Pokemon game before that and they wouldn't end up buying another game after. Platinum I think deserves the praise, but I'm not sure that the other Gen4 games do.

#9. SUN / MOON - Like SV, I have mixed feelings about the entirety of Gen7, but the negatives tend to outweigh the positives more often than not. The game isn't glitchy, but it's bogged down by numerous cutscenes and its inability to render a battle scene that contains more than one monster per side (something that Gen6 also struggles with). The Super Training app was also removed and the game suffers from having too many Alolan monsters be rare or inaccessible until very late in the game - something it shares with Johto.

The Z-move gimmick also feels like it was done it bad faith, especially after GameFreak started writing mega-evolution descriptions depicting the monsters in question to be in intense pain after XY and ORAS introduced the mechanic as something that could only be achieved by having a close bond between monster and trainer.

However, I do like the interesting take on the Gym system in this generation. The Totem monsters were genuinely challenging to fight, as well as other boss trainers.

#10. RUBY / SAPPHIRE - I don't have much to say about this once since it's just a worse Emerald, but there's still something I find about it to be oddly comforting.

#11. FIRERED / LEAFGREEN - I like Kanto's Pokedex quite a lot, but there's just something about it that I don't find particularly memorable and consider to be a bit of a chore (maybe because I've tried to Nuzlocke it too many times...?) I do appreciate it being a lot more interconnected than any other region listed, allowing more freedom concerning which Gyms to face next.

#12. ULTRASUN / ULTRAMOON - While the Ultra games fixed many issues concerning the accessibility of certain monsters and also introduced the Beach Point system, it also added even more cutscenes and, in my opinion, made the story worse; I loved having Lusamine be this batshit loony villainess, and yet that was recinded in favor of her having good intentions but getting too caught up in her goals to notice her declining behavior. Normally I like this sort of villain, but when we got the deliciously unhinged Lusamine as a first pass... I honestly liked that better. This feels like a cop-out.

This game, much like B2W2, is a total slog to get through. It feels immensly slow - it's the DP of the 3DS games.

#13. BRILLIANTDIAMOND / SHININGPEARL - This game leaves such a sour taste in my mouth. It really feels like GameFreak went: "Here's your Diamond and Pearl remake, are you fucking happy now?". It isn't like ORAS where the characters were revamped and QOL improvements from the rest of Gen8 were implemented; it's more like FRLG where the game is the same and all it received a fresh coat of paint, and even then I felt like FRLG was treated with more love and care than BDSP was.

There were improvements though, such as the ability to outright buy certain TMs from the Department Store and the wonderfully revamped Grand Unerground (I will admit I've had a lot of fun with the wild encounters there), but there's so much of this game that feels like getting spat in the face.

#14. HEARTGOLD / SOULSILVER - The game annoys the shit out of me because so many people seem to love it and I just... can't. Too much wasn't changed for ease of play - the level curve for wild Pokemon is far too low and the level curve from the E4 onwards is far too high. There aren't a lot of Johto Pokemon that are good, although there aren't many Johto Pokemon to begin with. The additions of some Gen4 evolutions helped a little, but some are blocked off until the post game (Honchkrow, Mismagius) and some are straight-up imposible (Magnezone) to acquire, which is very strange to me. Johto in general (and this matches up with BDSP's problem of being a remake but not adding in QOL improvements) is weirdly distributed, with Johto-introduced Pokemon such as Houndoom and Steelix only being available in the post-game, which I feel like defeats their purpose.

While by far the best-looking of the pixelated Pokemon games, it's as cumbersome as the rest of Gen4. And then there's that stupid Voltorb Flip game...

#15. DIAMOND / PEARL - There's not much I can say here, so I'll just sum it up by saying that Platinum is the only version of Sinnoh you really need to worry about. That being said, we wouldn't have Platinum without having DP, so... credit where credit is due?

[gogogoat495]

Alright, since everyone else has been sharing their alternative holiday playlists, here's mine. It's over 3 hours long (and still updating) and nearly 100% video game music, mostly Touhou, Nintendo, and other indies *cough* Undertale *cough*, so if you've never listened to any vgm for fun, now's your chance. (Also, it's completely unsorted, so it's in your best interest to hit shuffle.) If you end up liking it or any of the sample songs I post below, please tell me!

Here it is: My Non-Denominational Holiday Megamix

And now I can talk some more about it! There's a good deal of traditional ice-level/holiday tracks in there, but I also put in a bunch of stuff that fits into one or more of the following categories: "Festive (General)", "Snow (Quiet)", and "Winter (Dark)" (and depending on your definition of the holidays, some of these might be a reach -- but hopefully that's what makes the playlist interesting!) I've put some of my favorites from each type (along with some creator's commentary) under the cut if you want to sample the playlist before/instead of listening to it, or if you want some more of my thoughts (It took hours to write this, so I hope someone does). Enjoy!

Holiday Tracks:

Sugar White Christmas Eve (Kirby Cafe Albums)

Two classic Kirby Ice songs (Rainbow Resort and Frozen Hillside) mixed together beautifully, now with more sleigh bells! (To be honest, having a bell-like sound effect is really the most important criterion for whether or not a song landed on the set list.)

Desire Drive (Touhou 13: Ten Desires)

Despite not being in any way a holiday level, this is more holiday than most of the holiday tracks. It is not festive in a general way, it is festive in specifically a winter way. You can just imagine a crowd of people coming in from the cold and gathering around a fire. As they draw closer together, their hopes and wishes burn brighter than the flame itself... I really love this song.

Uwa!! So Holiday♫ (Undertale)

I played Undertale during the winter, and pretty much the entire reason I closed the game between sessions was so I could go to the settings and listen to this. I never even touched the menu either, just laid back and drifted off.

Ice Tracks:

The Frostlands (Octopath Traveler)

This is another one of those tracks that causes you to stop playing the game for a while. It's cold, but in a way that makes the warmth shine even brighter? I don't think that's a tone that you really get outside of video game music, but it's kind of the entire point of the holiday season, right?

Route 216(Night) (Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum)

This is what a snow day would sound like if you turned it into a song. There's not much to say about it, I just like how fun it is. (Note from 2024 - A lot of the Sinnoh tracks recently got pulled off Youtube entirely, so until someone puts them back up, enjoy these top-tier remasters from Olive Expert!)

First Steps(Piano Solo) (Celeste)

I've also put the normal version of the song in the playlist too -- they both fit in their own ways. In order to hear this track, you have to make it to a secret room in the first level. As you stand on a ledge overlooking the city, the other instruments drop off and all you're left with is this. Snow whips around you, and as you catch your breath and see how far you've come... well... this is one of those moments that make games so special.

Festive (General) Tracks:

Tabula Rasa ~ The Empty Girl (Touhou 3: Phantasmagoria of Dimensional Dream)

I can and have listened to this track for hours. It takes a little while to get the melody, but once you do, it's the catchiest thing ever. It sounds just like it could be a folk dance... C'mon and join everyone!

Stardom(Musical) (Pokemon Black & White)

This song is why I played the musical minigame so much. It's not long at all, but it's just got so much spirit!

Field of Hopes and Dreams (Deltarune)

Undertale and Deltarune especially both have a lot of tracks that really capture the holiday spirit without even trying. That sort of child-like yet profound magic just runs its way through the heart and soul of both games and wraps you up in a big hug. If it's not snowing outside when you play them, you're missing out.

Snow (Quiet) Tracks:

Mystic Dream ~ Snow or Cherry Petal (Touhou 7: Perfect Cherry Blossom)

The main menu theme for a game where spring has been indefinitely delayed by an all-consuming winter. Despite this, there's so much hope in the melody of this song -- I love how every Touhou title track absolutely nails the tone of the game.

(Wait, that's all it'll let me post? Guess I'd better make an addition.)

[Video ID: All videos are of the listed song. /End ID]

[moodywyrm]

aaa i’m so sorry i had no idea !! please don’t be sorry, which emojis are taken and i’ll pick something different it’s no bother !! 💕 and aw moony i’m sorry, life can be pretty brutal i know the feeling but there is always tomorrow and the day after and they’re full of happy moments you haven’t gotten to experience yet !! ☁️🌈💗 and know you’re very much appreciated in this lil community you’re my fave writer i go back and read all the time !! ✨ + oh definitely the writers and actors come first always !! but i’ve gone back and rewatched their fights already 😭 i do the exact same thing with abbys fights, her ‘are you wearing my backpack ?!?!’ line always makes me laugh.

and aaa i can’t bullet journal i wish i could !!!! i’ve been gathering everything barbie related i can find and im dedicating a few pages to her cause 1.) the movie !!! and 2.) i actually collect barbie dolls + memorabilia :’) + omg nooo i understand the feeling i can’t leave home without my ds, do you have any recs/what are your fave pokémon games? i’ve only ever played pokémon moon !! 🌙💓 + nooo i avoid my own amazon wishlist otherwise the add to basket button is suddenly clicked without me realising !!!! what is the item you want most off of it? if you want to say ofc !! 💖 + thank you moony :’) i’ve never talked through anon before !! usually i’m too anxious but i love reading all ur other anons asks it’s so sweet hearing about other people’s days/interests idk 🫧💓 - lipgloss femme :D

it's totally okay baby, neither of us knew!! it's an adorable emoji but I would simply like to not associate with that side of Tumblr. the current emoji anons are 🌬️ 🐚 🧸 🧩 🧶 💌 ♌️👹 🎀 🎃🫀🦕 🌊🦇 🌺⭐🐥🍒💤🍓🧃 and also (bc im on my laptop and they don't show up) the pink heart, bubbles, and the blue jellyfish! so anything except for those and the butterfly are free!

I will literally cry if you keep being nice to me 😭 I have had such a day and im trying to be Stable rn but im a sad little guy </3 im someones favorite writer??? that doesn't even feel like something that could happen im??? what?? wow??? ahh????

real!!! we stand with the strike, I am also just a Frequent rewatcher and those fight scenes are. I've dissected them. I have so many favorite moments. they're so good!! omg and I love abby's lines, my favorite is ooh someone wants to get laid~ because she's such a goob!!

that's so fair, my bullet journal is such a rough lil makeshift planner that I occasionally but todo lists in because it's the only thing that helps be with school!! I've had five so far? im on #6 rn I think. barbie!!! I still haven't gotten a chance to see the movie but I fucking love Barbie!! who's your favorite barbie!!

for pokemon games, mine are the hoenn region games!! so ruby and omega ruby!! I also loved Moon, it's so good!! and I really liked Pokemon Black!

no literally the amazon wishlist is a dangerous trap. I have a couple things I really want!! mostly clothes and shoes, like these really cool brown platform boots? or these big zip up hoodies!! just a lot of clothes </3 it would be a lot of books if I was allowed to buy books this year </3

aww honey, well im glad you came in and talked to me!! it's really fun!! I love talking to my anons, they're always so cool :( and you're one of them!! so welcome baby <3

[doberbutts]

Since I've been playing literally since I was 4 I feel likeI go through this every release where the target audience (actual children) are really happy for a new pokemon game and everyone else (the adults addicted to nostalgia- I'm in this group don't get it twisted) throws a massive fit because it wasn't as good as the last gen. Except the last gen had problems, and the gen before that had problems, and the gen before that had problems-

Gen 1 is a glitchy buggy mess and it's a miracle that it ran in the shape it was in when it shipped. So it tracks that gen 2 thru 9 are also glitchy buggy messes and it's a miracle they run at all.

I'm seeing people saying that PLA was better on graphics and on how it ran the open world aspect, while I remember when PLA was released people were saying the graphics weren't as good as Sword/Shield and they wished the open world was more like BOTW where there were no hard separations between zones (which is what we have now with Scarlet/Violet). I remember when Sword/Shield was released people complained about, you guessed it, the quality of graphics and how small the open world aspect of the "wild zone" was. When Sun/Moon released people complained that that it was too easy and, you guessed it, the quality of the graphics was bad. When X/Y came out it was also too easy with bad graphics. When Black/White came out it was too easy to get lost and all the new mons were ugly. When Diamond/Pearl came out it was too easy to get lost and all the new mons were ugly. When Ruby/Saphire came out the contests were a stupid useless gimmick and no one liked the hard switch in the art style and there were a hideous amount of required HMs to get around and it broke too many established Pokemon conventions. When Gold/Silver came out it was too similar to Kanto and too stuck in the past. When Red/Blue came out it was too hard and filled with too many severely game-breaking bugs, moves and typing that straight up didn't work, and lacked a lot of what we consider the "true spirit" of Pokemon today.

You know who didn't have any of these complaints? The kids who the games were designed for in the first place 🤷‍♂️

Big sigh. Anyway. There's some serious optimization problems and I don't know if it's hardware or crunch that caused it. I'm honestly guessing both. Every once in a while I feel my switch really chug-a-lugging along trying to load something in. I'll be mid-cutscene and stuff in the background is moving at approximately 3 frames per second even though what's close up is fine. Is that intentional as a near/far focus trick? Is the game just really struggling to load everything at once? It feels almost like what they wanted to do was have the entire world going 24/7 but load interactables in proximity to the player character, but the map is REALLY BIG to be doing that and the switch genuinely cannot handle it, as compared to BOTW which also has a huge open world map with very few hard distinctions between "world" and "city" but does NOT try to have the entire world living and breathing around you, instead it exists solely in proximity to the player character and stops existing once you walk far enough away. This theory is furthered by the claim I've been seeing that these problems are significantly worse in multiplayer, because two players can be all the way across the map from each other and yet share a collective pool of catchable pokemon in the overworld- meaning if I play with a friend and they're right next to me, we cannot both catch the same pokemon nor can we fight the same NPC battle, which ALSO means my switch has to be strong enough to run two-to-four identical copies of the same world with two-to-four people interacting with proximity-based interactables at the same time. This is a weird way to code this and I think a little too ambitious for aging hardware and I think this is where a lot of the really bad lag and framerates and memory leaks are coming from.

The graphical bugs are mostly just really funny as, at least through my experience anyway, they are solely graphical. Sometimes my player character straight up isn't there when I throw a pokeball mid-battle. Sometimes the camera clips through the world on a successful catch. Sometimes the lighting pops in and out of existance as I walk a straight line. Sometimes NPCs in the background walk through each other or vanish from existence. But this doesn't seem to make a difference in how the game plays- I still throw a pokeball, I don't drop through the floor, the NPCs pop back in after a second or two. So I'm a little more forgiving on that because silly graphics errors are kind of a staple of videogames at this point. Last night I apparently was roughly 50ft tall for a split second while harassing @kangals during her attempts to breed more charmanders. It doesn't negatively impact gameplay and it's a funny thing to witness so w/e that's fine to me. A lot better than the fuzzy jpeg look of a thrown pokeball in PLA's cave and water zones.

That being said... I like it? It's fun, it's pokemon, it's open world. I think the better things to complain about are that it doesn't scale at all to your level, which I personally think it should because at the moment if you've played literally any other pokemon game then you know the correct thing to do is explore everywhere and catch everything and I just beat the third gym and by doing that with ZERO grinding I was about 15 levels ahead of the third gym and I'm *still* about 5 levels ahead of the "pokemon obey you up to this level" cutoff. This makes the game hilariously easy because I'm so dramatically overleveled for everything. Note: I had this problem with Sword/Shield as well.

However I'm also more intersted in the background story than I was for Sword/Shield which I found very boring. I was a little meh initially on the new terra gimmick and I do think it's a little broken but I also think it's a fun way to really challenge yourself for battles if you've been at it as long as I have. I LOVE the open world and I LOVE that I can just dick around ingame with friends and we can hang out and do stupid shit together. The music slaps and while I think some of these evolution requirements are annoying (fuck you 1000 steps fuck you 999 coins) I also like that some of the requirements are, well, really quite inventive. I wish there were more outfits and I wish there was a definitive answer for how old I'm supposed to be here- I'm attending what looks like a college and there's both 5yos and 50yos as students??? I'm younger than my rival who looks to be about 25 but clearly significantly older than any of the rest of the kids in our shared homeroom class who look like they're barely out of diapers??? I like the autobattle system but I'm kinda mad it locks you out of level-based evolution and simultaneously doesn't tell you that.

So, there you go. My long-winded review lol. Like a lot of games this year I think it's a 7/10- it's fun, it's playable, I enjoyed it, but I do think crunch really hurt it and I think if it had more development time a lot of the flaws could have been improved. Sadly crunch is so common in the industry at this point that it'll take a lot more than boycotting a singular game or series to make any real change... and crunch exists for capitalistic reasons, so anything that costs these companies more WILL make the price of these games go up. It sucks, but that's an industry problem, not just a Pokemon or Gamefreak or Nintendo problem.

Who did you pick for your starter? I'm starting my copy today (since there's co op I'm playing with my friend, pending he feels well enough) and I may have to break my streak of fire starters to go with the grass cat....

Fuecoco! I always go fire and I like the fire/ghost typing on the final evo. Close second is the very gay duck.

[teler-of-gallifrey]

Wait a damn second, this is my tumblr account, I can infodump as much as I want.

Infodump on my fanfiction universe that I've been working on for three years that has been fused by a combination of multiple hyperfixations and being a special interest below the cut.

Okay so it all starts when the Daleks decide to do what Daleks do and exterminate not just one but all the universes by throwing them together with a universe collider (There's also Davros in the background using this as an opportunity to reality bomb the multiverse again). Two important things happen because of this:

1. Samus Aran becomes a spider totem

2. Darksied realizes the Triforce exists

The Daleks of course fail, because that is the other thing the Daleks are good at.

Darksied does more research into the multiverse and finds more fun omnipotence granting toys like cosmic cubes and infinity stones. He then decides to collect them all like they're Pokemon cards. The people of the universes these things are in aren't so fond of the whole part where he becomes a despotic emperor, and naturally fight back. Long story short every universe is torn to shreds, and the only way the good guys win is by taking the five remaining tardises, looping them back in time several times a la day of the doctor, hooking them up to the moment, and channeling all that power through the Three Elven rings to stitch the remains of the multiverse into one, single universe: The Oneverse.

There's a whole lot that happens in the oneverse, so today I'll focus on the Black Maelstroms.

This all starts during the clone wars for two reasons: The Separatists are pursuing an arms deal with the zebasians, and the Kaminoans need new clone templates because the Jango Fett sample is deteriorating. So the Republic sues with the Galactic Federation (not to be confused with the United Federation of Planets) and they put together a team consisting of:

Samus Aran, (this is before zero mission), who has been noted as a bit of a loose cannon

The Wanderer, who goes by the kind of reverse moniker James Lumstrom, where only those he's close to get to call him that, A Timelord and a Jedi who has also had a problem with going rogue

Turel, an Empyrean and an Iron Marine(if you've played Iron marines, you know. If not, they're aliens with high psychic abilities who are very similar to the Jedi) who is two years from retiring and has said "Fuck You" to every single one of his commanding officers at least twice

Kyra Lindela, a Mandalorian mercenary who had been trying to join the republic army for a while now and who kept one upping them when they refused

and Thacrer Krocikt, a Tusken and one of the only non-Jedi generals in the Republic army, renowned for being extremely competent and respected, but who also caused a good deal of trouble for the Senate by doing things like saying that the clones deserved rights. He was also an extremely capable pilot, on par with Anakin despite not being force sensitive. He quickly became the de-facto leader of the group, with the others submitting to him if there was a disagreement amongst them, so much so that the Kaminoans deemed that if they couldn't get a sample of him that it would be pointless to clone the others (I think the Kaminoans are big into eugenics, it's implied and I'm pretty sure it's outright cannon and they deemed the others too unpredictable without a "suitable handler")

They where each given upgraded arc trooper armor, as part of the darktrooper program (which they where given only the most basic information about) and go on several missions, all successful, and a sort of family dynamic evolves between them, Turel essentially becoming the grumpy grandparent of the group, James and Samus adopting each other as siblings, Tharcer and Kyra doing the same, but with a different dynamic (James and Samus being like two siblings close together in age, while Tharcer becomes Kyra's older brother), and Kyra and Samus begin dating. All goes well until a raid on a zebsasian base housing bio-weapons goes south, resulting in Kyra, Samus, and Lumstrom being trapped in a high-heat area used to store specimens from high temperature environments. They manage to escape, but Kyra succumbs shortly thereafter to infected blisters. They bury her in her armor. Later that night, through the Force, Lumstrom senses the destruction of Gallifrey. Wracked with guilt, as he believes he could have stopped Kyra's death by forcing a regeneration, and tortured by the grief of losing his best friend and his planet and his family in the same day he flees, teetering on the edge of a Timelord victorious breakdown. A few weeks later Tharcer does some investigation and finds out about the Kaminoans plans, including that they have been instructed to collect samples even without consent. Hoping to prevent this, he disappears into the night. Thus the project is deemed a failure and closed, though not before a sample of Samus is collected. Samus stays in the Federation Police force a while longer before leaving to become a bounty hunter, and Turel retires, mourning another lost friend.

Meanwhile, in the Mandalorian afterlife: "Fuck this. I want to propose to my girlfriend. Hey Mandalorian spirit over there, you've been here a while and probably have some pull with the higher ups. Could you get them to send me to space hell?" Kyra asked

"Are you sure you want that?" asked Mandalore the Great. "Space hell really sucks, like, the ground is made of various sized pieces of broken glass, and there's tall grasses made of razor blades, and instead of water they've got sulfuric acid, and the air is mustard gas, during the day it's hot enough that you'll get blisters and at night it's so cold you'll get frostbite. And you'll be completely naked, no armor or anything. Are you sure you want that?"

"Yes" She said. "because if I can walk out of space hell I get to come back to life"

"Okay then" said Mandalore the Great, sending her to space hell. Then it took her a year to walk out of space hell, after which she came to on earth in the in 1998.

[ramblings-of-a-mad-cat]

so when did luca realize they’re trans/non binary? and when did you if you don’t mind saying, nw if you’re not comfortable tho

Oh not to worry, my good anon! I'm totally comfortable with talking about this.

Actually, it gives me a chance to talk about a head-canon for the Fawley family that I've been working on. I really like the idea of Family Trees representing their "branches" with symbols rather than names (Or in addition to names, as that wouldn't really be a great way of keeping records.) that was introduced with the Lestranges in Crimes of Grindelwald. I'm going to have the Fawleys do the same thing. Except, it's going to apply to both sides of the tree, not just the women. Get that creepy sexism out of here. So the boys born to the Fawley family have different birds for their symbols (Example, Jacob got a Red-Shouldered Hawk) and the girls have different flowers (Example, Gail got a Marigold.) People who become Fawleys via marriage or adoption are also given a symbol. Farah, Luca's mum, got a Bleeding Heart flower.

But Luca? Either they were born with both, or the second symbol appeared when they came out. (I'm gonna say Luca's are a Blue Jay and a Chamomile.) Not exactly sure which, but I'm gonna say that playing with Jacob each day is what helped Luca realize they weren't a boy or a girl. When they would invent characters to play as on their adventures, as kids often do, Jacob only ever wanted to be guys. But most of Luca's characters were "unknown" and thereby used they/them. It was Jacob who asked if Luca simply wanted to use they/them all the time, when Luca was about five or six, and they really liked it. Not long after they, they told their mum what they were feeling and chose the name Luca, which everyone switched to immediately and agreed that it suited them better. Head-canon time, I'm gonna say that their name on all official records like their birth certificate (and their official record at Hogwarts) were changed as well.

As for me? Well, I owe my realization to the media that I consume, specifically to Undertale. It was like six or seven years ago now, that I first heard an individual being referred to as "they" in the playable epilogue of that game, and it...I dunno, it just kind of woke something within me. Hearing Frisk be called "them" it just...it felt kind of right? For basically my whole life I had always felt different from other kids, never quite felt like a girl but also definitely never felt like a boy. It took me a few years to realize it in full and accept it, cause I second-guess myself a lot and there was a long time where I was thinking, "well, maybe I am" etc. But Frisk and Chara were the genesis of my realization.

As for the name Blair, believe it or not, that comes from a Let's Player called Chuggaaconroy. They did a series on Pokemon Black and White (one of my all time favorites of that series) and they named their character "Blair" which was a name I had always been aware of (I knew people by that name when I was a kid) but something about the way I got reminded of it when I first watched that Let's Play, just made me realize how much I enjoy the name and how much it just...I dunno, it just fit me, in my soul, with how I felt. I tried it out for a while on anonymous websites, etc, and grew more attached to it, until I started using it on Tumblr as well.

Thanks for asking, my good anon!

[mad-queen-thorn]

Massive vent under the cut, its been a week and a half and I can’t seem to dwell on this any longer. Venting again only because I have very little followers and 90% of them are good friends I hang with regularly, so I feel safe spilling out my feelings here, don’t want to burden anyone with my thoughts and feelings, reading is optional.

I didn’t mention this here, because I didn’t feel the need to. 

When it comes to my Diabetes I’m almost in remission, its a good thing, and by June I might be off the meds and officially into remission. Which is looking promising, but knowing my luck, I beat one thing and two more take their place. Its like taking 3 steps forward and 2 steps back. 

And well, its 3 things this time, I’m now on blood pressure meds for hypertension, only weak ones, so its not that bad. Docs think it might be the pressure I’m putting on my body with the lifestyle changes, but when I lose more weight it should go back to normal. Other than that they want to check out my kidneys as they said there’s a lot of protein in there. They’ve pushed back one of my tests which is causing me worry. But it was merely because the equipment they wanted to give me hasn’t arrived yet. So maybe I’m worrying over nothing. 

Anyway, this isn’t the major thing I keep bottling up. 

Along with my Type 2 Meds and my Blood pressure meds, I take Fluoxetine, which I’ve been on since late 2015. For anxiety and depression. So with all the appointments I’ve been having the past few months they’ve also been keeping track of my mental health, and now the docs think it might be more than just my Anxiety and Depression. 

They think I’m Autistic. In fact, I’ve been told that its highly likely I am after them talking to me, a family member and a friend who has autistic children herself, talked together in the docs room about my past, my behaviours and such and how our friend sees a lot of traits in me, and the doc said “You’re most likely right.”.

We sent off a referral form with a tonne of information about myself, my hyper fixations, behaviours, stimming, social interaction and more.

I’m officially under investigation for Autism.

I’ve been trying to process the information for almost 2 weeks now, barely telling a soul about it. But with the information I’ve been given, the more I think about it, the more of my life is making sense: 

When I was younger, I had a hard time making friends and I still do. I thought it was because I was ugly, weird and because of my overbite that it drove people away. That it was my fault entirely for not being good enough, like bullies made be believe. 

Turns out, that making friends can be hard of Autistic people because of their differences in communication. 

Which at the end of day... explains a lot. 

I’ve noticed that in large groups, I’m very quiet, both in person and online. I don’t speak unless I feel its needed to, and I try to not speak over people and often find myself doing so. I really don’t mean to. I just find it really hard to understand when there’s a good window for me to chirp in without seeming rude. Other times I’ll wait and wait and then when its time for a moment for me to voice the conversation has most likely moved on, which isn’t a bad thing. It just seems like I don’t have a good grasp of social cues. 

My black and white thinking also seems to impact my social interaction. As in the past I’ve just assumed and read situations wrong. Sometimes accidentally upset friends on multiple occasions without meaning. As sometimes my mind is just: 

“It has to be 1 or 2″ And nothing like a 3rd option comes to mind until its pointed out or I’ve made my mistake and beat myself up for it. Thinking I was being selfish and horrible. But now I guess that this explains those moments. They happen a lot, but not in bad ways. Like I said, sometimes its either one or the other, and I fail to see alternative options unless stated. 

Like, the other day I was with my friend who has autistic children, we play Pokemon Go together. And we had a debate about the design of Attack and Normal Deoxys: 

(The top Two) 

She said that they are a different colour, yet I said they are the same colour. Yet she said they’re different. Now, my brain didn’t connect the dots and that she meant that parts of their body are different colour but they both have the same colour scheme. It took me a few moments to actually get what she meant... so??? I guess??

I tend to have little moments in communication like that. 

Also, when some of my family make a joke, most of the time I don’t laugh. My sense of humour tends to be niche and connected to my hyper fixations and spur of the moment puns. Or I’ll make a joke to my family or a friend and they don’t get it, and I have to explain and they still don’t find it funny. I seem to have stronger connections to people who are into the same things I am. Something for me to build a conversation off of or I’ll fail to maintain a conversation. 

I thought this was just normal?? But at the same time it might not be...

Idk I have so many questions. There has been many things I’ve questioned about myself.

Like the need for a second opinion on situations others would see as common sense. Sometimes I go to someone I trust, explain a situation only to be told my feelings are valid and why I’m even questioning them. 

I dunno, it feels good that there might be a possibility behind how I communicate. 

While explaining to me, the doc said: “Your brain seems wired different, and you see the world differently from everyone else. People need to understand that.”

And I... like I said, I don’t know. 

I mean, the following seems to also be signs: 

In person I find it hard to make eye contact. 

I like to be left alone sometimes. 

I can’t be alone for long periods of time as I get stressed and it pulls down my whole mood. 

I find it hard to take part in group conversations over voice. Text is fine. 

My body language and tone can be completely different to what I actually mean. I’ve gotten in trouble with this, but the person who was mad at me didn’t understand. 

I don’t pick up on body language. 

But I’ll be observant on everything else. I tend to spot most things others don’t notice. I’ve had this in person many times and people tend to compliment me with “Wow you’re so observant!”, “You have good eyes!”. 

Lack of excitement, this happened today. We got new carpets in and my mother was overjoyed, but I never felt a thing. I felt like I should be happy too but I couldn’t. I am capable of being happy for other people, but yet again, it has to be connected to a hyper fixation or someone I trust/care about. 

Relationship with my parents isn’t great, probably due to my communication issues.

I only express myself to people I deem I’m close to, other than that I seem very disconnected. I’ve heard people say that I seem to be in my “own little world” on more than one occasion.

Selective Mute or nonverbal. Sometimes I just can’t speak or come up with what to say and remain silent. 

Picky with food. For example, if someone puts beans on my plate, I simply can’t eat around them. I’ll dismiss the entire plate and feel bad about it. Cuz my mind tends to think the whole thing is “contaminated” by the beans and I can’t eat it. 

In person I can tend to point instead of using words sometimes. 

I’m not a touchy person, especially with my family. But if you’re someone I trust, I’ll probably cuddle you to death. Really selective of who I let close to me.

Nobody can touch my hair but me. Nobody can brush it but me. If I let you brush it, its a blessing. 

Always listening to music while doing things like drawing/walking ect. 

Questioning my place in social situations and how others think. I have a habit of putting myself below everyone else. The idea of other people thinking of me or thinking positively of me next to never crosses my mind, the whole thing seems foreign to me. 

Another major pointer to it is my stimming. 

Now, I’ve stimmed for many years now and felt BAD about it. Because I felt like I didn’t deserve the stim toys I have. But now everything is starting to make sense. Even though my stimming does piss some family members off, I try to not do it around them and simply can’t. Sometimes I start stimming without even noticing. The most common being my legs, I will bounce them. All the time. If my hands are busy its my legs, if my legs aren’t moving, I need something in my hands and I have quite a few stim toys. From fidget cubes to squishy pokeballs. I have a habit of making them click or rolling the ball in my hands between rounds on videogames or when watching youtube videos. I also tend to lean towards glitter shakers. Love those things. I tend to mute my mic a lot during voice calls as I get paranoid people can hear me stimming. Because I feel like the bump bump of my foot on the floor or the clicking of my fidget cube will annoy people. 

Not adjusting well to change and being in social situations with a lot of people are another two signs. For example, yesterday I was in the kitchen with all the furniture while the carpets had been getting put down, there was limited space to move, I had nothing to stim with and didn’t like it. I felt bad for being annoyed. I wanted to go to my room but couldn’t. I wanted to move around. 

When it comes to social situations, I can go to heavy populated situations like conventions but not for long. I start getting overwhelmed and feeling sick. I enjoy it as much as I can but I can only take so much. 

Same with social interaction. I can only take so much. 

Once I get overstimulated I can get moody and my temper shortens, but I usually isolate myself by the time it comes to that point.     

I blamed all my social woes on my Anxiety but at this point it might not be my anxiety. It might be Autism.

But one final thing that also points to it:

Hyperfixations

I currently have two massive fixations.

Pokémon which is one I've had all my life

And Guild Wars 2 which has been a fixation since 2017

But within them I have specific things I fixate on. Which I guess are sub fixations?

For example, in Pokémon. I love the lore, certain legendaries and I absolutely adore cat Pokémon. Every time there is a new Pokémon game out I almost cry in excitement. My bedroom is covered in Pokémon stuff with a few other fandoms scattered in there but it's 90% Pokémon.

Pokémon shirts, Pokémon bedding. Pokémon posters, Pokémon bags, Pokémon plushies, keyrings.

Whenever I get something my family tend to go "Ugh. Not more Pokémon"

And Guild Wars 2 is pretty self explanatory.

I love Aurene, Tybalt and most of the main characters and lore.

I have the Rytlock figure and art and the OST discs ext. Books of lore and stories.

But 90% of my fixation is on the Thorns.

Thorn Pyjamas, Thorn bags, Thorn plush. Anything I can get my grubby little hands on...

Go figure!

I also try to not express myself too much as in the past I've had people try to force me out of hyperfixations because I was too "annoying".

I feel like I talk about my two major fixes too much. So I try to curb down on it to not drive people away...?

I wish I knew the results as I have so many questions.

They said they think it's very likely I'm autistic.

I don't want to write myself off and say "Yeah, I'm Autistic."

Because there's that chance I'm not. But so many people who know me in person think I am. And I've been asked many times over the years and never had a second thought about it.

And like I said, the docs said I most likely am.

I'm just waiting for an assessment and the result which I got told could take months to years.

I just want answers so I know how to make life is easier for me.

I want answers so I can just be myself without fear because I keep holding myself back thinking I'm weird or a bad person or bad at communication.

I always notice my social flaws and say they're "habits I need to kick"

But maybe they're not. Maybe it's just how I am.

I want to know.

I need to know...

I just want answers...

[shadowfae]

I've recently stumbled across the word "otherkin" and it seems to describe certain feelings I have, but the tumblr tags seem to be full of unuseful information and, well, silliness. I'm sort of looking for people to talk to while I try to sort myself out, without making too much light of it. Do you have any advice on sifting through everything?

Besides going ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA’ and never doing anything about it?

First things first. You’re new, so we’re going to divide this into two parts. Part one, crash course on otherkinity, alterhumanity, and the little branches of it you should know about. Those words and terms will help you figure out what’s what. Part two is great, you know all these terms, how do you sort through the mess that is kinfeels. 

Under a readmore because long, since I ramble sometimes. I’m glad you asked, and if you have any further questions, hit me up again and I’ll do what I can.

Part One: What Even Is Otherkinity

Otherkinity is identifying involuntarily and nonphysically as something nonhuman. You aren’t saying you are physically this thing (as you are physically human), you cannot choose to be this thing and can’t choose not to be this thing, and you do not identify as human 100%. 

The modifiers: Fictionkin means you can be something that is human, but it must be fictional (like Harry Potter or Percy Jackson or smth). You can be a member of a fictional species that isn’t human (like the Elf Queen’s Daughters of the early 70s that started the fictionkin community). It is still involuntary and nonphysical.

Otherkinity is divided into three ‘main’ branches: therianthropy, otherkinity, and fictionkind. Therians (or therianthropes) ID as an animal that has been or is on Earth. Like dinosaurs or foxes. There are an absurd amount of wolf therians here on tumblr. Those that are obviously faking or haven’t questioned enough for even themselves and just went with ‘wolf’ because it’s cool are called wolfaboos. Usually I just don’t talk to them, since to each their own and they’re not actively being annoying, but please don’t just “oh I’m not human clearly I’m a wolf” the moment you get kinfeels. Things don’t... work... like that...

Anyway. Otherkinity as a sublabel of itself generally has within it our conceptkin (I’m calling it that for now. Things like voidkin or starkin), theriomythics (fantasy animals within mythology such as unicorns and youkai), draconics (draconity, which is dragons and pretty self explanatory), the vampire and were____ communities, and probably a few others.

Fictionkind I already went over. I have three kintypes that are fictionkind in nature. They are called fictotypes for this reason. (Kintypes is the label for all of them, but there is also theriotypes and fictotypes for therianthropy and fictionkind.)

Those fictotypes are Pale Noël from the Evillious Chronicles, a noncanon Devil from DSP’s works, and an Absol from Pokemon. As I have more than two kintypes, I am in what we call ‘polykin hell’. Though tbh, most people put themselves in polykin hell when they’re up past five. Poor guys.

The things that are close to otherkinity but not actually it!

Copinglinkers- They ID as something voluntarily to cope with something. Usually trauma or mental illness. While not otherkin, they are alterhuman and do belong in our community. They are also called copingkin, which is a bit outdated but since copinglink is a new term, I’ll let it slide. (It was coined by @who-is-page, actually, and they are a delight to follow if you want to see antikin absolutely dragged through the mud.)

Otherhearted- Those who identify not as something but with it. As an example, I am faehearted and shadowhearted. I identify with those things because one of my fictotypes did, and that carried over. It is very easy to mistake heartfeels for kinfeels. Regardless, like c’linkers and ‘kin they are alterhuman and totally rad.

Synpaths- Tbh I’m not quite sure what’s the difference between synpaths and ‘hearted. (I have heard it is ‘ID with this’ versus ‘I want to hug that’ but you should not be asking me; as I don’t have a fuckin’ clue.) Either way, if you think you have a synpath go research that. Please don’t ask me, I don’t know. All I know is that they exist and they do stuff, so they’re worth mentioning.

There are also ways to be otherkin, for lack of a better term. Ways you explain why you identify as these things. There are two main ‘branches’ to this: spiritual and psychological. There are also religious, cultural, and probably a few other reasons, but let’s go with the ones off the top of my head.

Spiritual- Can be anything from ‘my soul is this and my body is not’ to ‘I was this in a past life, and it is still relevant’. (You can have past lives that aren’t kintypes. The difference is simply how much they affect you. I do believe I had a life a fuckass long time ago in second age Senntisten, but as it isn’t relevant outside of vague memories of fire, it isn’t a fictotype of mine.)

Psychological- Anything from ‘I used this as a c’link at one point but it is now irreversible, and I am this now’ to ‘My brain decided to be wired weird and now I ID as this’. Essentially, you have a psychological reasoning for being kin or hearted or whatev. Psychological otherkin get thrown under the bus a lot because really angry copinglinks insist they’re kin and we’re “gatekeeping ableist jerks”. The difference is that c’links choose and can drop their identity. Psychological otherkin cannot. The line can be pretty blurred, and in that case you’d best just slap down “I am this, currently questioning if c’link or kintype”. Literally nobody can yell at you for that. I’ve had to do it before. Never did figure out what it was, but it doesn’t matter now.

Religious- I don’t see this one as often, but I think it’s something along the lines of ‘my God wants me to feel like I’m this for X reason’? Or maybe it’s a past life thing that your religious says you have. (I think Buddhism does that, but I am no religious scholar and I might be wrong.) 

Cultural- I’ve seen this mostly in Native American folks, but I’m sure they’re not the only ones. What I have seen is ‘my family have always been crows, so I am a crow therian’. I don’t know much about Native cultures, despite having grown up around them, so I suppose if you had cultural reasons, you’d already know? I do believe spirit animals play into this, but I’m what we call ‘exotic white bread’ and I am not the authority. But I also don’t know who to redirect you to about this. Hm. I’m gonna have to go asking around.

And of course, to finish off part one: multiplicity. That’s a fun one.

Multiple systems aren’t kin. Not hearted either or anything. They’re the other ‘main branch’ of being alterhuman. They are usually several people trying to pilot one body. They use terms like fictive, which is not fictionkin(d), though the two get confused an awful lot. A fictionkind person is someone who IDs as someone or something fictional. A fictive is a part of a multiple system who IS that person, with usually no other identity. 

Using myself as an example: I am fictionkind, and one of my fictotypes has green hair. I do not have green hair right now, and that fictotype is not my entire identity. A fictive is more like “hi I’m Harry Potter and I live here now, in your body, with you”. That would be his entire identity: he is Harry Potter.

Factives are close to that, but real people that do or have existed on Earth. That’s like “hi I’m Shakespeare and I live here now”. It’s possible to have system members that are neither. That’s chill.

Supposedly, multiple systems can be both trauma-born and not-trauma-born. The latter is usually called endogenic, I think. DID/OSDD are two disorders that cause multiplicity, but as far as I know they are not the only ways to have multiplicity. You can soulbond and things, which is like the copinglink for multiplicity as in you bring someone in voluntarily. (Tulpas are also a multiplicity thing.)

Part Two: How Do I Deal With Maybe Being Otherkin Without Just Screaming Into The Void

First things first. My way is not the only way to do it. It is one method, but it tends to work for lots of people so here’s the method I know. It’s chill to ask around and figure out what others do, and then find the method that works for you.

Second things second. Do not ask a pendulum or divination blog to kinfirm something. It is a terrible method. You can divine yourself, but do not ask anyone online. Nobody’s divination is always right, and when you’re doing it online, the chance of being right drops exponentially. Bad method, 0/10 do not recommend. (You can totally divine for yourself, though. My tarot deck is particularly sassy about my own god complex from kinfeels.)

And the actual method.

1. Go create a sideblog. Name it whatever, find a nice theme you like. Make sure it is readable and not just pretty.

2. Make a tags page. I suggest doing this over a couple of days, because you are going to forget what tags you need. You want to sort between ‘angry vagueing about nothing making sense’ from ‘feels related to this’.

3. Document EVERYTHING EVER. If you think it is kin related, write that down. If you have vague memories of something, write that down too. Tag it appropriately, if only so you can find it later. (’tag later’ is a good tag if you’re on the go and know you’ll forget if you don’t write it down now.)

What I also do is fill this blog specifically with images that resonate with me. I use a queue and tagging system for this. (White blossoms is the tag for gentle TLW things; whereas black blossoms is General Edge(TM).) You should put images that resonate with you in a Particularly Kin Way on that blog. If it’s art or anything, remember to source it, though. Reblog, don’t repost. 

Also, if you’re into requesting things from kin blogs like stimboards or aesthetics, have a reqs tag for them! Keeps it all in one place and you know where you got them from. I like JUST put in mine and I am angry I didn’t do it before.

Then, self introspection. You need to ask why on everything ever. Question things. Do you do insertthinghere because your parents said so, or does it seem like you just have to? 

If questioning feels very upsetting or uncomfortable, stop for the day. I don’t recommend any more than an hour and half in one go. Your brain will confirm things that aren’t true in order to work with you. (Confirmation bias, I think it’s called.) Keep the questioning to short bursts, even if you’re on a roll.

If you must go longer, document document DOCUMENT. Writing things down makes them clearer, and halfway through writing you’ll go “oh shit that’s why that happens”.

It’s okay if your writing is messy or only makes sense to you. This is all your own, and how you go about it is entirely your decision. 

Questioning should take you weeks or months. There are a few outliers who can kinfirm something in two days and be right, but let’s be honest here: nobody likes them because we all envy them and want to be them, so we don’t like them. All jokes aside, keep it to a pace you can handle and don’t bite off more than you can chew.

Got all that? Good. Now do a shit ton of research. If you’re questioning, say, harpykin, chase links across Wikipedia and read everything you can get your hands on about harpies. You might come across something else that’s close to it: off the top of my head, the Maximum Ride series, for example, is close-ish to harpies. Check that out too, but if it doesn’t resonate, don’t push it. If it ain’t a thing and you know it isn’t, don’t bother with it, it’ll get you nowhere.

Ask around! Don’t be afraid to ask someone “hey do you think this could happen?” Nobody’s input is the end all be all, but if they’re someone you think is educated on the matter, take it into consideration. (You would not believe how much of an idiot I felt like while doing research on demonology and a friend pointed out that Christianity is not the only religion with demons. It’s obvious, but never occurred to me. You will get that feeling at some point. Happens to the best of us.)

Lastly, go at your own pace. And if you have done all of this, it will be several months from now. Go back and look at your oldest kin documents. You will understand it all so much better, and you’ll mentally high-five your past self for knowing so little, but being so full of hope anyway.

Of course, if after all of this someone tries to invalidate you, it won’t work. You’ll have done the research, the self introspection, the grueling grind of “why why why?”. They can’t tell you the sky is red if you’re not colourblind. If they try to grill you for your information, you can point them nicely towards your probably-a-trainwreck of a sideblog and they will see your documented adventure of ‘what am I?’. And then they will stop talking, because you have proven that you know what’s up.

And as the very last piece of advice? You will be wrong. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. You can be questioning. You can say “I don’t fucking know!!”. You are allowed to have bumps and wrong turns in your journey. They will happen. It’s okay. Take a deep breath, see where you might have made a mistake, write that down, and keep going. Progress is progress. You’ll figure it out eventually, no need to know it all right this very minute.

I hope this helps, little anon! This is how I came to find out I was- and I’m not done yet, either. I have some oceanic kinfeels that I know exist but don’t know what they are: fuckers better show themselves to me soon because I’m onto them. Who knows where that adventure will take me.