#so not any of my ultimate faves :( but i was SHOCKED to see my obscure gacha game boys at all

[riddlerosehearts]

i'm at a con and was not expecting to see a3 merch at all but at one of the first booths i went to i spotted omi's hair and eyes and then ended up combing through every single box of buttons pins and keychains etc that they had?!?

it's too bad i wasn't looking for omi or tsuzuru stuff or this would've been a bit of a jackpot lol

[kylosrehn]

aos for the ask meme. or, if you've already gotten that (or you just wanna do both) the wider MCU.

the first character i ever fell in love with: Skye. Or Ward. I can’t really remember which came first. Probably Skye because she was so relatable and quirky and positive but I also loved grumpy pretending-not-to-care SO Ward. 

a character that i used to love/like, but now do not: Skye… or Daisy I guess. I started losing interest around halfway through S2 with the whole Afterlife plot (and then just stopped watching the show altogether after the S2 finale lol) but S3 was the one that really left a bad taste in my mouth. And the start of S4 with emo vigilante Daisy. I don’t dislike her, but it’s a far cry from the love I had for her in the early days. Same with Jemma, actually. I really liked her in S1, this cute, quirky if slightly awkward scientist willing to bend the rules when she believes it’s the right thing to do. Afterwards things got… complicated. I like her more on her own, outside of FS scenes (which, when does that ever happen?) Can she/they ever have a storyline that doesn’t involve saving the other one? For science? No?

a ship that i used to love/like, but now do not: Hmm… I don’t think I have one? Once I decide I like something, I fall for it pretty hard. lol. I guess Daisy/Lincoln. That’s a funny one, because when they sort of started flirting in S2 I liked the idea of them together, and I thought they had a lot of potential. But once it actually happened I wasn’t into it at all. It felt kinda rushed and I just didn’t really see any chemistry between them. It was an ‘expectations vs. reality’ sort of thing for me.

my ultimate favorite character™: Oh gosh… Fitz, I guess? I mean, obviously I’m trash for Ophelia but I actually wasn’t all that fond of the whole Aida arc at the beginning… I liked her more in the Framework, and all the potential she had as a human (or Inhuman, whatever.) It’s funny because he sort of grew on me. I admittedly didn’t pay much attention to him in S1 because I was so wrapped up in Skyeward, but once they killed that storyline and started developing his character from the nerdy sidekick/comic relief to an actual, fleshed-out character dealing with brain damage, then yes I became involved. Still mourned the untimely demise of Skyeward in S2 though.

prettiest character: Fitz or Ward if it’s more ‘handsome’ pretty. Out of the ladies… Daisy, I suppose? Also Stephanie Malick because personal bias - yes I’ve loved Bethany Joy Lenz since One Tree Hill and they totally should’ve let her stick around for longer than two episodes god damn it.

my most hated character: I’m not particularly fond of Jemma. Or what they’ve done with her, I suppose. But god damn it if there’s one character I hate it’s Ruby. Really glad that arc is over.

my OTP: This one’s pretty obvious. Skye/Ward and Fitz/Ophelia. Hehe. 

my NOTP: Fitzsimmons sorry not sorry.

favorite episode: (In no particular order): 5.14, 4.16 and 1.17. Self Control and, frankly, all the Framework episodes, are strong contenders, but that’s my podium. 

saddest death: I’ve got to say Fitz. Mostly because it was so sudden and I honestly wasn’t expecting it at all. I genuinely didn’t think they’d have the balls to kill off one half of FS, especially on-screen. I was literally expecting him to miraculously pull through and just have his legs amputated or something. It felt so surreal. Of course, then they brought CryoFitz back into play so really it was all just one big cop-out (figures) but the shock factor was definitely there. It was just the right amount of sad and downright distressing and even unsettling, with the way he didn’t fully comprehend what was happening and just…slipped away. I also really liked how they didn’t cheapen the moment by making it all about FS, which was… honestly such a nice surprise? I preferred the shocked and unaware approach they took, and how he spent his last moments with… kind of the two most unlikely people - May whom he hasn’t ever really bonded with, a relationship which is made especially awkward by their experience in the Framework and the ‘super villain interrogation’ in 5.15; and Mack, who literally told him days or even hours earlier that he needs ‘fixing.’ It was all very weird and bizarre and surprising, and definitely felt like a solid punch to the gut. At least, until they straight up announced they’re going to essentially retcon it… Eh. Also, Ophelia? Maybe less sad and more just downright disturbing and gratuitously violent and graphic. 

favorite season: If Season 1 and 4.16-20 and 5.14 could somehow be merged into one season… that would be it. lol. Overall, I have to say S1. Most people hate it and call it the weakest season and, sure, it felt very formulaic and had this predictable ‘monster of the week’ format at first but it was genuinely enjoyable to watch. Every other season after that I just found myself getting angry at something. lol. I actually liked pretty much every character in S1 to some degree and because nothing was set in stone or made explicitly canon yet, there was a lot more freedom shipping-wise. There was no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ ship, or ‘no you can’t like this character because of X, Y, Z’ it was just whatever you were into. For a while it seemed like pretty much all combinations of the Bus Kids ships had a decent chance of sailing. That’s a pretty damn good feeling. 

least favorite season: Hands down Season 5. I wasn’t a fan of Season 3 either (though admittedly I did like certain episodes/aspects of it) and Season 2 could’ve done without that whole ‘Real SHIELD’ plot but Season 5 takes the cake. I mean… seriously. It was a let down, especially after the hugely successful Framework arc (the show’s strongest point so far imo.) So naturally there was a lot of expectation and it kind of fell flat. They had maybe 2 or 3 strong episodes. The rest was riddled with plot holes, blatant fan service, lines that sounded like they pulled straight from fanfic, radical and often inexplicable shifts in character behaviour from one episode to the next that could be classified as borderline character assassination, frequent lack of continuity, too much time spent on characters that ultimately turned out to be irrelevant/got quickly killed off, writers seemingly forgetting what had happened in literally the previous episode, etc. There’s really no excuse for that mess. lol. Not to mention the at times pretty obvious budget cuts and the lack of decent lighting which made the space pod downright unwatchable at times. Really feels like the weakest, most disjointed and confused season of all. Which is a shame. Because it could’ve been great. But it just really… wasn’t.

character that everyone else in the fandom loves, but i hate: I don’t want to say Jemma but… Jemma? I guess part of the problem is that I feel there tends to be a discrepancy between the actual canonic on-screen representation of Jemma and fanon Jemma, at least in my experience. She (and Daisy) seem to get put on this imaginary pedestal a lot of the time and given leeway and all these concessions that other characters aren’t allowed. Sometimes I think I hate fandom’s approach to and treatment of certain characters more than I hate the actual character. Also, Mack and Bobbi? I feel like they’re pretty massive fandom faves as well and I never really got invested in them. I don’t hate them, they’re just… Meh. 

my ‘you’re piece of trash, but you’re still a fave’ fave: Leopold, the ultimate trash fave. Hehe. He’s just so deliciously messed up and complex and it’s so much fun to explore all of that. He’s like the one villain AOS completely unintentionally got right. Magnetic, charismatic, complicated. Sure, he only ever really shows up in about five episodes but in those five or six episodes they build a really solid character. We’re not told or shown everything, but that’s the point. Sometimes the implication is enough - and it’s super fun to fill in those gaps. And those suits. I mean, c’mon. lol

my ‘beautiful cinnamon roll who deserves better than this’ fave: Literally no one on this show is a cinnamon roll anymore. lol. I think Ophelia easily could’ve had a really satisfying redemption arc if the writers were actually willing to get into that instead of just shelving their more complex characters and turning to the safe option of ‘let’s kill the baddie.’ Ward could’ve possibly been redeemed too (up to a certain point at least) but I guess part of his appeal is that he didn’t want to be? Uh… and out of the still alive ones (kind of??), Fitz. He’s had a really tough time literally since S2. I also liked Mace and Radcliffe and I kind of wish they got to stick around for a bit longer.

my ‘this ship is wrong, nasty, and makes me want to cleanse my soul, but i still love it’ ship: Fitz/Ophelia. Obviously. I guess one of the more weirder ones is Hive/Stephanie. That’s… not remotely canon (I mean, I guess they kissed? lol) but in my headcanon Framework verse it is. Let’s be honest, there’s probably tons more because I always latch on to the more obscure stuff, but I can’t really think of anything else at the moment.

my ‘they’re kind of cute, and i lowkey ship them, but i’m not too invested’ ship: Philinda and Mackelena. I don’t ship either but I guess I can kind of see the appeal and I wish them all the best for the sake of the shippers because both of these pairings are frequently overshadowed by… well, the main ship. I can totally understand and sympathize with their frustration. 

[tumblunni]

“SO WHY DO U WANT 2 HUG THIS TRASH GRANDPA, BUNNI” post

Okay, i figured since, well, that one goddamn wifi event is That One Goddamn Wifi Event, I may as well make a short post about it so people who weren’t able to see it can understand how it fuckin Blew My Mind when I was a teenager and plunged me into the fandom hell for the most obscure unloved jerkass grandpa who may or may not even be the guy this vague tantalizing mystery plot point is even about, and AAAA

So yeah here we go, transcript of the event text (thanks, Bulbapedia!) and some general summary of the context of who da fuk dis Charon is, and hopefully maybe at least one more person shall now understand this tiny fandom for a tiny gremp!

~The Context Of Charon~

(skip all this if you just wanna get to the wifi event transcipt)

If you haven’t played DPPT and don’t plan to: The villain team of Sinnoh is Team Galactic, a bunch of silly guys in space costumes with a rad jazz theme tune and a surprising level of competance in a terrifying plan to erase the universe and replace all emotion with infinate silence. Also, interesting moral ambiguity cos most of them are either oblivious or outright good, just being manipulated by the team’s super scary badass leader Cyrus who’s led them to believe they’re going to ‘fix’ the world to end all sadness for everyone. This weird complexity behind goofy nonsense hair people is what got me hooked on them as my faves!

So who is Charon in particular? Diamond and Pearl got a third version called Platinum that fixed a bunch of glitches and unfinished graphics and expanded upon the rushed endgame, etc. It also (for some reason) added one single extra member to Team Galactic, as seen here on the second furthest from the right. Charon is a grumpy grandpa and he literally does nothing in the plot. Its really confusing why he was actually added, he only gets more than two lines of dialogue if you pursue a secret sidequest waaaaay in the postgame, and he still gets like.. SIX lines of dialogue and not even a boss fight. Poor dude barely exists in this game! So what’s weird is that this wifi event kinda contains more dialogue for him than he ever got in the main game, and it at least gives him a purpose for being here- to introduce the new transformations for Rotom that were added in this wifi event. But it just seems pretty badly handled cos he never even appears in the event and there’s a lot of fan debate that it isnt even meant to be him, blablabla. And he still doesn’t do anything UNLESS you get this wifi event, which is really unfair and probably contributes a lot to his unpopularity, okay sorry I’m starting to ramble...

Basically, all you need to know is that Charon is a grumpy grandpa who does literally nothing in the plot.

The Establishing Of The Grump Gramp This is... kinda necessary to know why this thing hit me so hard in the emotions? This is why I don’t think it would work as well if Mystery Wifi Event Flashback Person actually ISNT Charon. All we see of Charon in his VERY FEW non-optional dialogues is that he is vain, cynical, pompous, greedy and for some reason obsessed with talking like a complete tool. And he’s SO MUCH this that he doesn’t even have any loyalty to his fellow villains, he exists to be like.. The More. Everyone else is some degree of honorable dude doing what they do cos they believe in a good cause, Charon is that one teammate that’s too evil even for the rest of them. Or, like, at least too petty? He’s an eternally incompetant comic relief dumbass who never even has enough imagination to do anything genuinely evil, he’s somehow less dangerous than his morally ambiguous teammates! He’s just sitting here like ‘fuq yeh i luv bein evil cos i can swipe the pocket change outta dis vending machine’, then somehow it falls on him and shatters his old man spine. Meanwhile his boss is being all ‘I want to make a world of smiles!’ *collapses the universe into a black hole and literally summons poke-satan* So ANYWAY the relevant point is that you can see why he’s THE SINGLE MOST UNEXPECTED person to suddenly get a sympathetic backstory!

Some transcript of his tiny non-wifi-event dialogues for comparison of how much of an absolute prick this man be:

” It seems quite obvious to me, Charon, the genius even the boss recognizes.” "Humph. Saturn and even Cyrus fall to a mere child... Perhaps another option needs to be considered. One befitting the genius of Charon!" [This is basically his only dialogue in a normal game run, aside from expositioning a few things that were said by other people in the previous version.]

Postgame optional dungeon text:

“What do they see in Cyrus? Immature, overthinking buffoon. He goes through the trouble of assembling Team Galactic for what? Ultimately, he destroys his own creation for his ludicrous vision. It's no thanks to him that I have to struggle with the pieces." “The young can live with their dreams. I prefer to remain firmly in reality. And for that, money is paramount.” “ With this Magma Stone, I will awaken the legendary Heatran! I will control the volcano's eruptions to extort money by the millions! Fear me! “ [cue him being defeated offscreen in a cutscene by someone else] "...Uh, what are you saying? I know nothing! Extorting with Heatran? Merely the blathering of this harmless old man! All said in jest! Besides, among Team Galactic's Commanders, I was the most junior..." [Seriously, you don’t even get to see what Heatran even is! its just an optional scene to go back after he’s gone and catch the thing.]

So yeah he does literally nothing and all we know is that he’s a jerk and he betrays his evil team only to fail horribly at being his own villain also that he has a Rather Specific Speaking Pattern, which will come up later in linking him to that wifi event BUT ANYWAY literally the rest of the team walks away and leaves him to his fate cos he’s such a jerk literally Jupiter says he’s ‘not fun anymore’ literally a man dressed in a boulder costume bitchslaps him with a giant frog its like the biggest fuckin smackdown and the player didn’t even need to participate, he just self-destructed mid cutscene farewell two paragraphs of dialogue granddad, we will probably never remember you ever

B U T

~ The Transcipt Of The Fabled Wifi Event ~

Extra context: this was probably the worst handled of all the horribly handled wifi events. Makes sense at least, sinnoh was like the beta test for whether such a thing could actually be possible in this series. i’m glad they’re more accessable nowadays, but what sucks is that now we don’t seem to even get as many Actual Events, instead they’re just a plain gift of a pokemon via trade without a fun cutscene :( But yeah it was only accessable for a one month period when the game first released, and the item you got in the vent didnt have enough clues about where and how you were meant to use it in order to find the secret room, unless you already knew it was connected to Charon.

The item for the event is the Secret Key, which is somehow charmingly the least secret secret of all time

You take this to one random spot on a random wall in one of two separate Team Galactic HQs in this game, and the whole damn wall vanishes to reveal Charon’s Secret Lab/The Rotom Room

Here, you can turn Rotom into any of its new transformations. And then, completely optional, is a hidden backstory for this one terrible granddad! The notebook on the bottom desk explains how the transformations work, gameplay-wise, and also ‘hey this secret lab belongs to me specifically, Charon’ The notebook up to the top right on top of the box which you might not have noticed, and might have assumed would just contain more boring tutorials? Hoo boy dude, 99% OF THE EVENT DIALOGUE is in that thing! And you’d think a second hand flashback entirely through longwinded narration would be terrible but man somehow it really just worked for me. RIP my soul, cause of death: this

SO LETS GET GOING TO THE MEAT OF THIS POST, MY FRIEND

If you don’t feel like scrolling thru this textdump, I’d reccommend Chuggaaconroy’s excellent lets play of platinum, where he read out the journal here. (16:25, talks about the various wifi event failures first.) Or if you watch this earlier episode (17:15) you can see the whole mini-dungeon where you can catch Rotom in the first place, which isn’t necessary to understand all this but its still super cool. If you do feel like scrolling, here have the appropriate music, or the appropriate music: anime orchestrated version

+++

"It's an old notebook. There's no telling how old it is."

Our encounter was a sudden one. It was when I found my toy robot, one that I had earlier misplaced. At that instant, a Pokémon startlingly emerged from the lawn mower's motor! Clutching my robot, I stared, transfixed by the peculiar Pokémon.

The Pokémon hovered in the air, held aloft by a power unseen. As if curious and unafraid of my presence, it floated toward me. Crackling sounds accompanied it, as if from static electricity in the air. Remarkably, it seemed the Pokémon was the source of this power! In alarm, I flinched, certain that my face would be subjected to a shock. Much to my surprise, the Pokémon seemed to favor me with a smile.

Finally, I came to realize that the Pokémon only wished to be friends. I have decided to name this most wondrous Pokémon 'Rotom.' Simple though it may be, Rotom emerged to me from the motor of a lawn mower. Motor and Rotom... Surely the link is obvious?

Rotom is a Pokémon that is simply sensational. The fact that it can turn invisible is simply the beginning. What makes Rotom unique is its ability to enter and operate machinery!

Rotom and I became fast friends. We were perpetual companions. The electricity from its body forbade contact, however. We could not touch, let alone hug or hold hands, but we cared not. For we were bonded on a much deeper, incorporeal level.

A feeling of mischief got the better of me one day. Seeing Rotom hovering, I decided to startle it--normally I would not. Perhaps frightened, Rotom discharged power beyond its usual range. I fell, stunned, into the arms of unconsciousness...

When I came to, to my horror I realized that Rotom had disappeared. I searched high and low for my friend in dismay and desperation. 'Don't chastise yourself. The fault is mine. No harm done. Let us play as we always have.' Though my words poured out, my friend could not be found to hear them...

My search for Rotom carried me far from home. It was in the town's rubbish heap that I again found my old toy robot. Curiously, our eyes met, then the robot waved a hand as if in greeting. I knew then that I had found my lost friend. I ran to it and hugged Rotom tight, talking on and on.

The robot's eyes lit up happily as I held it. I'm certain that, within it, Rotom was emitting lots of electricity. Somehow, I felt I could understand Rotom's thoughts better than before. Also, I realized that we would remain friends throughout our lives...

"The notebook ends with this page..."

+++

+++

And this is his one and only trading card, and the biggest canon confirmation that he was indeed intended to be the mysterious author of Eighteen Pages Of How Much I Love To Hug My Friend Don’t tell me he doesn’t become INFINATELY more interesting with this knowledge!

Fuckin hell I would give my left foot to see an expanded plot upon this man’s secret good side seriously HOLY SHIT would you ever have imagined he cared about anyone, let alone THIS MUCH? Just sorry seriously i could talk for hours about this aaa dear god...

Oh and another minor transcript, you can get some dialogue from Rowan the first time you transform Rotom into one of its new forms. Its kinda interesting cos it gives some more Vague Potential Lore that inspires a cool headcanon that him and Charon might have known each other in the past? Cos he seems to know at least some details of that hidden journal...

"A Pokémon that slips into electric appliances, you say... Hmm... That is somewhat off from what I've heard about it. Hmm... This is what I've heard. Long ago, there was a Pokémon that merged with a toy robot. Should that Pokémon be recognized as a new species or not... Debates over the issue were about to start when they were rendered moot. The very topic of discussion--the Pokémon-infused robot--disappeared..."

Also that leads into another possible less-heartwarming interpretation of the whole thing that is actually EQUALLY interesting and ALSO makes Charon way more deep as a character! The idea that maybe this heartwarming thing is completely in the past, and nowadays he actually is 100% a horrible prick. Cos I mean, the one rotom you can find in the game is in that mysterious abandoned fancy old house, which is pretty heavily implied to be the notebook-writer’s childhood home where they met it. You can find a fragmented extra notebook page which seems to be the day before the start of the entries you can read in Charon’s lab. It says "Som...hing so pecu...r shou... make off ...ith the mot..." , which was confirmed to be "Something so peculiar should make off with the motor..."  aaaaaallll these years later in an episode of Pokemon Generations. So there’s the interpretation that maybe this rotom you can catch is the same one described in the journal, which makes you wonder why its all alone here if Charon supposedly cared about his friend so much. Perhaps he really was a decent guy once, but when he grew up to be such an evil prick he abandoned his pokemon? or maybe it saw what he became, and ran away? or maybe some other sort of mysterious thing happened to cause them to become separated? There’s so many potential interpretations of this whole thing, aaaa!! Why was such a tantalizing plot point wasted on a super hidden wifi!!!

But of course I like the version where trash gramp has one shred of redeemability in his soul and then hypothetically you could have a sidequest to reunite him with his tiny tangerine friend and convince him of the error of his ways and then EVERYONE CAN HUGS AGAIN

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

srsly its got the power to make me never stop thinking about this damn wifi event for all these fuckin years giv grandpa justice, dammit