#thankfully that strategy actually works pretty well

[cjgladback]

[ID: Four photos of two sock-clad feet standing on an aged wooden deck in direct sunlight. The socks are knit from medium grey yarn in an intricate but mostly-solid lace pattern with alternating diamond grids of wrapped ribs and curves of increased and decreased stitches. They're approximately crew-length with a small area at the toes and the heel in stockinette stitch and only a few rows of *k1 twisted, p2* rib at the top extending the final row of the lace pattern. End ID]

Yesterday was my first time wearing this pair of socks I started in April-May last year! They were my first project back after not yarning for about five years--then I drafted my first sewing project mid-2022 (a pocket I finished this October), wove in the ends of a pair of fingerless gloves I'd been using con spaghetti, and cleaned out my old LYS tote with this yarn, a matching gauge acrylic, and my circular needle. And though I've definitely made a pair of socks before (accidental torture devices for their giftee with the sensory specifics of illusion knit soft cotton and wiry wool) I had completely forgotten and got to research all the techniques again. (If you know me, you know that's a sincere "got to." 😄) In April, I frogged half the foot of a first run with a bulkier cable and honeycomb texture combo that I hadn't planned with sufficient negative ease. And in the meantime ended up browsing the crafts shelf at my library; I checked out the two stitch bibles they had for daydreaming at home. Pattern 88 from "250 Japanese Knitting Stitches: The Original Pattern Bible by Hitomi Shida" (there's a slightly newer, prettier cover with 10 more stitches too but I haven't seen it in person to recommend) was both one of my favorites and relatively narrow at a repeat of 18 stitches. So! I swatched it and measured the swatch gently stretched this time; three repeats around was just about perfect, and I ended up doing one 56-row pattern repeat each above and below the heel turn. I had plans for increasing into the calf without breaking the pattern but was nervous about running out of yarn (the last of a mystery wool cone gifted from my psych professor's stash). If I could do it over, I'd probably knit the pair from the inside and outside of the ball simultaneously so I could have slightly taller socks with a wider ribbing cuff, but as is they're staying up way better than I expected. Guess that's the shape-keeping joy of wool!

[mesetacadre]

hi, love your blog! have you heard of "maga communism"? i personally find it pretty silly, but it does open up some questions and conversations about reactionary/conservative beliefs within communist movements and individual communists (can you call a reactionary a communist?). most "maga communist" and similar tendencies i have seen were pretty exclusively on twitter so far, for example individual self-described communists being homophobic (talking about "bourgeois decadence" and all that, you know the story), but its also rather concerning considering the recent transphobic course of the CPGB, or the homophobic statements of the KKE. how to deal with such tendencies in the movement? are such tendencies compatible with communist thought? (i personally dont think so, but how do you change such tendencies?) would love to hear your thoughts on that!

MAGA communism is a US-specific subset of "patriotic socialism", patsoc for short. MAGA communism in particular peddles republican and other reactionary positions via pseudo-communist rhetoric. This isn't something new, almost if not all factions of the bourgeois political establishment use workerist rhetoric to some degree, such is their function to mislead the working class. The only thing that stands out to me from this sect is the outright self-labelling of being communists. Take even a shallow step into their positions however, and you'll find run-of-the-mill reactionarism and nationalism.

This is a very different phenomenon from actual communists taking some reactionary positions but who are otherwise quite "normal", and from actual socialist countries fostering some kind of patriotism.

Regarding the latter, the example I'm most familiar with is Cuba. Following their triumph in both national liberation from colonialism and the socialist revolution, one aspect of Cuba's strategy for security and that also was a natural rationalization of their victory was the proliferation of pride in the Cuban revolution. Critically, this form of pride is not like the usual (bourgeois, as in, the emergence of nationalism within the rise of capitalism) nationalism, but the expression of international solidarity with all peoples and honor in being one of the groups of workers who achieved self liberation. It's a pride of the Cuban revolution, not the Cuban nation in itself. There are no traces of superiority over other peoples in this kind of patriotism. This is categorically very different from what the patsoc types express.

"Normal" communists taking reactionary positions comes from a vestige of the capitalist culture that is hammered into every single one of us emerging because of an unfinished education in marxist philosophy. The solution to this is very simple, that is to continue the development of our mistaken comrade, and adequate punishment if those beliefs resulted in harm.

I also want to make dedicated points about the CPGB and the KKE. The CPGB, like most other historical Communist Parties in Western Europe, folded themselves into reformism within liberal democracy following the eurocommunist current that arose in the second half of the 20th century. The fact that the CPGB has adopted reactionary positions is a consequence of having embedded itself into parliamentarism, as the political consensus amongst bourgeois parties in the UK right now is that of transphobia and racism, they are following the same general shift that Labour has.

The KKE is a different story. I have talked to a (trans) militant of the KKE about this, as well as with another (cishet) militant. They say that the KKE's opposition to the introduction of homosexual marriage in the Greek parliament (which was thankfully passed) comes from a non-homophobic critique that was, however, badly communicated. The KKE has repeatedly proposed separating marriage itself from the legal and financial benefits that it carries. For example, instead of only being allowed to visit someone in a hospital if you're family or married, the KKE proposes that people should be able to authorize anyone to have these sorts of benefits without also having to marry them.

The voting against homosexual marriage was done on the grounds that the institution of marriage involves unnecessary state involvement in interpersonal relationships and abuse, since these benefits also sometimes lead to couples who can't afford to divorce. Was voting against gay marriage the best course of action? No, and the militants I've talked to agree. But it was never about the KKE believing that homosexuality is "bourgeois decadence", like some media outlets have twisted it, just like most ML Party positions are twisted in some way or another.

It also does not help that translations from Greek aren't that simple, and that can also lead to misinterpretation in subjects where nuanced language is very important, such as trans people. There are no separate words in Greek for "sex" and "gender", even though in English they are complicated terms with a lot of drawbacks, it is immensely useful to have separate words. So discussion in Greek about this, and more importantly translation, can very easily be misinterpreted or deliberately misconstrued.

I am not saying that the KKE is free from reactionary tendencies and that it's a paragon of absolute social progress, but just like it isn't that, it is also not comparable with crypto-fascists or glorified socdems playing into transphobic or racist tendencies. This leads me to a broader point about general reactionary thought in the past.

There is no doubt that people like Stalin or Lenin, or more appropriately the vast majority of ML parties in the past were homophobic (I'm using this term to also include transphobia and similar discriminations) and that they instituted policies that specifically hurt queer people. No serious communist today abides by those positions and those actions. And just like we can understand that an individual communist today may be insufficiently educated and express reactionary views and hurt people because of this, I think the analogy can be made that these past communist people and parties hadn't yet been sufficiently educated by practice and theoretical discussions. We can't ignore the harm that they did, but we can recognize that it was in no way necessary, and that it was counterproductive, so we can acknowledge those mistakes, carefully separate those elements from the rest of their achievements, and learn about them.

A good example of this evolution is Cuba. In the times of Che and Fidel, queer people were discriminated against and sometimes sentenced to forced labor, nobody denies this. But this was 50 years ago, and not only did Fidel recognize this mistake in this lifetime, he began the process of improving the party line on this which has resulted in one of, if not the most progressive laws regarding homosexuality in the world, in the form of 2022's family code, which you can read here in Spanish. I have copied part of article 4 below, which regulates the rights of people within a family, along with my own translation just below:

Artículo 4. Derechos de las personas en el ámbito familiar. a) Constituir una familia; b) la vida familiar; c) la igualdad plena en materia filiatoria; d) que se respete el libre desarrollo de la personalidad, la intimidad y el proyecto de vida personal y familiar; e) que las niñas, los niños y adolescentes crezcan en un entorno familiar de felicidad, amor y comprensión; f) la igualdad plena entre mujeres y hombres, a la distribución equitativa del tiempo destinado al trabajo doméstico y de cuidado entre todos los miembros de la familia, sin sobrecargas para ninguno de ellos, y a que se respete el derecho de las parejas a decidir si desean tener descendencia y el número y el momento para hacerlo, preservando, en todo caso, el derecho de las mujeres a decidir sobre sus cuerpos; g) el desarrollo pleno de los derechos sexuales y reproductivos en el entorno familiar, independientemente de su sexo, género, orientación sexual e identidad de género, situación de discapacidad o cualquier otra circunstancia personal; incluido el derecho a la información científica sobre la sexualidad, la salud sexual y la planificación familiar, en todo caso, apropiados para su edad; h) la protección a la maternidad y la paternidad y la promoción de su desarrollo responsable; i) una vida familiar libre de discriminación y violencia en cualesquiera de sus manifestaciones; j) una armónica y estrecha comunicación familiar entre las abuelas, abuelos, otros parientes, personas afectivamente cercanas y las niñas, los niños y adolescentes; k) la autodeterminación, voluntades, deseos, preferencias, independencia y la igualdad de oportunidades en la vida familiar de las personas adultas mayores y aquellas en situación de discapacidad; y l) al cuidado familiar desde el afecto.

And the translation (OC)

Article 4: A person's rights in the context of the family a) To build a family; b) to family life; c) to full equality in filial matters; d) for the free development of personality, intimacy, and the personal and familiar life project to be respected; e) for the boys and girls and adolescents to mature in a familiar environment of happiness, love, and compassion; f) the full equality between men and women, the egalitarian distribution of domestic work and care between all members of the family, without overburden to any of them, and for a couple's right to decide if they want descendants and the number and time to do so to be respected, preserving, in every case, the right for a woman to decide over her own body; g) the full development of sexual and reproductive rights in the familiar environment, independently of their sex, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity, disability, or any other personal circumstance; including the right to scientific information about sexuality, sexual health, and family planning, in every case, suitably for their age; h) the protection of maternity and paternity and the promotion of its responsible progress; i) a familiar life free of discrimination and violence in whichever of their manifestations; j) a harmonious and close communication between grandmothers, grandfathers, other relatives, people who are affectionately close, and the girls, boys, and adolescents; k) the self-determination, wills, desires, preferences, independence and equality of opportunity in the familiar life of adult people and those in a situation of disability; and l) to affectionate familiar care.

[ninaswritingstuff]

Have a little snippet of something I wrote for my TimKon Clone Baby AU. Technically it's an ABO-verse, but nothing in this snippet actually refers to that, so this could be read as a Tim-is-trans universe.

Enjoy!

The commercials always make this stuff look easy, Kon thought, glancing between the half-empty glass jar of mashed bananas in his hand and the banana mush-smeared face of his son.

Danny was apparently in A Mood this morning. It didn’t happen often, as Danny was normally a pretty agreeable baby so long as his diaper was clean and his favorite stuffed animal was in reach, but sometimes the kid just woke up and chose violence. At least Kon had yet to be hit in the face with the stuffed rabbit Danny drug around everywhere, so overall not a bad morning.

Ellie had, surprisingly, been the easy one this morning, happily taking her portion of mashed banana. Bananas were a winning strategy with that kid; pears came in a close second. Kon hadn’t realized a baby could glower with the best of them until he’d tried to feed her mashed sweet potato. She was only marginally less hostile to mashed carrots and mashed peas.

He really hoped that wasn’t a preview of coming attractions.

“What’s got you in a mood this morning, squirt,” Kon asked. “Normally you love bananas.”

“Bah,” Danny replied, sounded way too resolute for a five-month-old.

“If you’re still miffed about the formula thing, I feel you, but it’s really the only option you’ve got at the moment.”

“Bah!”

Unlike his sister, Danny had an allergy to standard formula. Thankfully, Alfred had found a soy-based alternative that Danny wasn’t allergic to, because Tim had only been able to pump so much before he’d taken off to go find Bruce and Kon had no clue how he was gonna keep his son fed while Tim was gone when he ran out of milk. Danny had not taken the switch well, and Kon had questions about that ‘seven years under a yellow sun’ thing because the strength with which his son had shoved the bottle away the first few times could not be normal baby strength.

But answering those questions involved talking to Clark, and Kon was very much not in the mood to do that. If it wasn’t for Bart agreeing to tag along with Tim since Kon couldn’t, he was pretty sure any interaction with Clark would result in someone getting socked in the face. Even with Bart watching Tim’s six, Kon still had the urge to punch Clark in the face. How exactly was it crazy to think that maybe Batman wasn’t actually dead? So what if they’d had a body to bury? Kon had left a body, and he had come back alive and kicking. Clark himself had died and left a body only to come back later alive and kicking. Was it a long shot? Sure. Kon would give him that. But no more of one than half the shit they pulled off on a regular basis.

Kon’s entire existence was a long shot. So was Danny’s. Ellie’s was, too, if you thought about it. If Jason Todd hadn’t spontaneously resurrected for no discernible reason, he wouldn’t have been picked up by the League of Assassins and dunked in the radioactive kool-aid. He wouldn’t have come back to Gotham and hunted down Tim, beating him with an inch of his life. And if Jason hadn’t done any of that, Tim wouldn’t have been put on the antibiotics during his recovery that neutralized his suppressants and birth control, leaving him heating and fertile when Kon fucked him.

Long shots were pretty damn common in their line of work.

“Well, if bananas aren’t going to cut it today, what will?”

“Ooogah ohm da!”

All of the languages CADMUS had crammed into his head, and baby babble wasn’t one of them. With a sigh, Kon screwed the lid back on the banana jar and went to see what else was available. If Danny had a thing against bananas today, he’d probably refuse to eat the mashed pears. Kon grabbed a jar of mashed peas.

“Alright, kiddo, let’s try this again,” Kon said, settling back into his seat and opening the jar. “Open wide!”

Danny watched as Kon brought the small spoon, loaded with mashed green peas, closer to his face. In a display of proof that maybe there was, in fact, a god, Danny accepted the spoonful and swallowed after a moment of mulling it over.

“Oh thank fuck,” Kon muttered, loading up another spoonful. He needed to get at least another four or five spoonfuls into the kid before he could call it quits.

Transitioning the twins to solids was way more complicated than it sounded. Everyone seemed to have a different opinion about it, offered up a different timetable, and presented different lists of which types of foods are best for babies. He was more or less splitting the difference and hoping he was close enough. It had been two weeks, and so far neither of the twins had gotten sick or shown any other adverse reactions to additions in their diet. So he was tentatively calling it a win.

It was hard to tell if Danny was being deliberately difficult or if he was just randomly pickier than usual as Kon tried everything he could think of to get his son to cooperate. Danny hadn’t flatout rejected the mashed peas, seemed to have no problem actually eating the mush once Kon managed to get it into his mouth, but the little boy kept squirming around like the world’s most active bobble-head.

He didn’t catch the set of footsteps quite as quick as he otherwise would if he weren’t running on a third of his usual sleep schedule. Dick’s footsteps were light---most of the Bats’ were, save for Red Hood---and he moved like the highly skilled acrobat he was. He was able to sneak up on him if Kon wasn’t paying attention; even Tim hadn’t gotten that good yet.

“Good morning, Ella-bean,” Dick said, bending down a bit to get on eye-level with Ellie in her highchair. “Looks like someone had fun for breakfast.”

Half of a banana had been sacrificed to keep Ellie distracted and occupied long enough to feed Danny; Kon suppressed a shudder every time he glanced over to check on her. She’d mashed the poor fruit into a barely recognizable paste and it was smeared all over her face, clothes, and hair. She was going to need a bath.

“I take it bananas aren’t going over well with Thing 2?”

“I switched to the peas,” Kon replied. “He hasn’t spit them out yet, but he’s also not really bothering to cooperate, either, so…”

“He’s probably had enough, then. I can go give Thing 1 here a quick bath if you wanna get him cleaned up,” Dick offered, already pulling Ellie out of her seat.

She squealed and flailed her tiny, pudgy arms before settling into Dick’s arms and deciding to suck on her banana-coated thumb. Kon took a deep breath and recapped the mashed peas.

“Yeah, probably a good idea. I’ll go grab a spare onesie for her.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Dick assured him. “The nursery’s on the way to the bathroom, I can just pop in and grab something. The DVR should still be set up for The Wiggles re-runs. Ellie and I will join you two once she no longer looks like she took on Condiment King.”

Kon snorted.

Honestly, Danny was only a bit cleaner than his sister. He’d probably have to wrangle him into a clean onesie, giving the smears of green on Danny’s current one. Hopefully he’d be more cooperative with that than he was with breakfast. Kon should probably send a complaint into Gerber; their commercials were full of lies. Even if none of the baby food jars in the manor were Gerber brand.

He snagged a small handful of baby wipes and set to work wiping away the smears of mashed peas and bananas from his son’s face. In keeping with the apparent theme of the morning, Danny squirmed away from the wipes and whined in protest.

“I know, I know, but you’ll be happier when you’re clean.”

“Bah,” Danny retorted.

“You are just as much of a menace as your sister,” Kon commented, a half-smile on his face. “You’re just quieter about it, huh?”

“Mah ohm bah!”

Once Danny’s face and hands were clear of mash, Kon stood up and lifted the infant out of his high chair. Danny shrieked and kicked, giggling as Kon settled him in a more secure hold. That tiny little fist of his gripped at Kon’s shirt, but he didn’t otherwise squirm.

“Alright, let’s go get you into something clean, and then we can check in on Ellie and Uncle Dick. Sound good?”

“Bah!

Kon was particularly careful when he set about getting Danny changed. He’d made that mistake exactly once. Cute as Danny was when he was giggling up a storm, he could find something else to giggle about.

[starfallchampion]

Alola! My name is Lucky, I’m a professional Pokémon trainer and retired Champion from, you guessed it, Alola! I’m Galarian by blood, but we moved when I was younger so my trainer journey formally began here. Yes, I am that Champion who dealt with the Ultra Beast crisis — I’m open to questions about it, so long as they’re not like “does it still keep you up at night?” Answer being yes, of course it does. In fact, if you have any questions about anything and everything battle-related, shoot them my way! Not only am I a seasoned trainer, I’ve also been travelling the world for quite some time now with my siblings, beaten a few gym circuits and given a couple evil teams what-for! I’ve seen people and Pokémon of all stripes from everywhere you can think of, so I like to think I’m pretty qualified!

If you’ve ever followed me and my journey as Alola’s Champion (fun fact: I was the first official champ in Alola!) you’ll know my strategy has evolved and changed a lot over the years. I can’t tell you what it actually is for obvious reasons, but you should know by now it’s super effective (lol). My ask box is always open, so please, ask away!

More information about me:

I started this blog at the suggestion of my partner! Partner as in romantic human partner, not my partner Pokémon lol. He and my siblings may post occasionally and if they do please do say hello!

I split my time between a lot of different regions for work reasons so I’m oftentimes extremely tired because of the jet leg on top of a sleep condition I have. For my physical issues I have a few Mons to support me that don’t battle, so they’re not very well-known in my ‘lore’ as some people call it.

Since I was a teenager and the Aether Foundation Incident happened I haven’t had very much privacy, so I’m very private about my life and my Pokémon outside of a battle context! I’ll probably still post about my non-battling Mons and my family + my partner, but not beyond what we’re up to generally.

My sister is studying very hard to be a Pokémon professor, so if she gets anything wrong, please don’t be afraid to correct her! Just be gentle, she’s still learning lol. My brother on the other hand will probably be reblogging a lot of Dark-type content, especially Umbreon stuff. As for my partner, he’s busy with work and me a lot of the time, so he’ll probably be a rare sighting on this blog!

Now, let’s meet the team shall we?

Neptune, a Primarina and my starter Pokémon! He’s a very loyal companion and loves getting everyone soaked in a stadium even when he’s not using his Z-Move. The best way I’ve ever seen him described is ‘a tank with a tail’ in a review of one of my matches.

Venus, a Sylveon with an axe to grind. He’s a bit of a diva but he’s extremely obedient in battles, so don’t be fooled by his attitude when you see him with me in interviews and such — he’s a sweetheart, he just doesn’t wanna admit it.

Bolt, an Alolan Raichu that is everything one would expect of his species lol. He’s a bit airheaded, one may even say he’s a klutz — but nothing and no one stands a chance against his megawatt smile!

Marian, a Ceruledge that has a strange knightley thing going on. I don't know when it started or what started it, but he's very chivalrous to all those around him, human or Pokémon! A relatively new addition to the team as he joined me while I was doing the Paldean gym circuit.

Bedsheet, a Mimikyu; there is a story behind her name. She made a disguise out of bedsheets and curtains the first night I had her. I was staying in a motel. Thankfully I managed to pay back the damages with all the wins she brought me. If I had to sum her up in a word: cheeky.

Tricky, a Golisopod that put me through the ringer as a Wimpod to catch her. She’s very sweet and loves to hang out by the beach. She’s a bit of a tank like Neptune, but she packs a punch too! She was my trump card for a while there.

Obviously as I’ve implied I have quite a few more buddies than this, but that’s my most frequent lineup as of now. For the rest you’ll just have to keep an eye on my battles. >_0

I think that’s everything! Thank you very much for reading and I look forward to every interaction we may have! :D

OOC INFO:

Hello hello!!! I’m Spooky, but I go by many names on my different blogs (Lovely, Cyril, Cerule, etc.) and likes and follows will come from my main @spookycrownblaze! Just want to knock a couple things out the way b4 I really begin with this blog!

First things first, no NSFW. Lucky and Grusha are adults but Lillie and Gladion are not. It’s not appropriate for this blog, nor am I comfortable with it.

I have no experience with any of the mail systems so I won’t make a call until I’ve had some experiences with them! So, tentatively, I’m accepting all kinds of mail for now.

Lucky is my self insert for the Pokémon world basically KSAKJLD he’s entirely based on my experiences playing the games!!! He wins 99.9% of his battles because all his Pokémon would be lvl100 + max friendship in the games as that is how I roll!!! If I don’t steam roll thru all my battles I am losing /j (oh and also I know nothing about the Pokémon anime so I’m working off game canon the majority of the time)

As you may have gathered by now, part of this blog is an established OC x canon relationship! If you don’t fuck with that, totally cool, please exit stage left. If you do, hey hi hello welcome! Thank you for restoring my faith in humanity a little! I’ve always known fandom to be pretty nasty about it, so it’s really refreshing to know some people are chill about it.

That said, I also work off my own canon, in which SM/USUM happened years ago and Lucky was the player character, except he was in his mid teens (15-16ish) and became a sort of older brother figure to Hau, Lillie and Gladion! It's kind of A Lot but to summarise: they saved Alola and all they got was this dumb shirt (intense PTSD), Lusamine is dead because of the Nihilego thing so Lucky functions as Lillie and Gladion's guardian as well as their older brother, Lucky has an extreme fear of Ultra Beasts and some physical scars from his battles with them but he kept a couple that proved they could behave themselves, being the oldest kid that emerged from the rubble of the Aether Foundation Incident Lucky is a bit of a celebrity for both good and bad reasons and Hau is the current Champion in Alola! He took over for Lucky when he retired a couple years ago and Lucky made him get a manager and assistant immediately after he took the position.

Lucky and Co. (Lillie and Gladion) mostly travel now! Along the way they just so happen to occasionally get roped into the plot of some other games. Lillie and Gladion do most of the talking, Lucky does most of the serious battling and gives any young trainers they meet advice. He also may or may not have beat up a few evil team grunts as opposed to battling them out of frustration.

Obviously don’t feel forced to interact with this blog if you don’t like any of the aspects of it or if you just don’t like the lore I personally work off for my character! I will not be hurt, I will not know — I get why. I am a slut for canon divergence and I love making fun overly powerful OCs with the cruellest nerfs I can think of. In Lucky’s case that’s just my sleep problems and Trauma™ JKDSJGLS

That is all!!! I feel like I yapped a little too much but I want anyone interested to have some context for this blog and its characters even if I feel So So Cringe laying it all out. Might post Lucky’s ref sheet at some point idk. My little eepy champion dude. THANK U FOR READING!!! ENJOY :D

[cherubchoirs]

What if during the Gabe and Micheal fight V1 was serveraly injured by Michael?

Like the fight originally wasn't Gabe vs. Michael but it was Micheal vs. V1

After all the shits that's happened in hell and the fall of his brother, he wants to avenge his brothers memory by killing the thing that made him fall.

In this action he's thinking "gabe is gonna hate me for this but he needs it"

Granted V1 could totally beat Michaels ass he probably just caught him off guard and when he was low on blood.

michael likely would give v1 a pretty good fight - i tend to think that gabriel is an equal match for it with many of their sparring sessions being his win, i just like to think that v1 is particularly troublesome when one has no experience as it learns EXTREMELY quickly (beat it in a minute or it'll never happen!!) and it has an instant blood-healing mechanism. in that sense, michael would equal it as well as he's pretty similar in strength and skill to gabriel, BUT he's got a couple advantages that help level the playing field despite this being a first encounter, chief among them how he engages it with little warning already enraged. complicating this is the fact that michael is naturally very adept at harnessing his wrath as an advantage in battle rather than a detriment, so i think enraging sends him into a radiant state...which isn't a great set-up for a machine that's likely just rooting around for some soul orbs.

thankfully for v1, it's extremely difficult to actually catch it fully off-guard - it's learning about michael from the first move he makes, knowing he's a supreme angel like gabe but instantly scrapping much of its data to start from a clean slate. because he doesn't fight like gabriel. gabriel has a serene elegance to his fighting style, a grace in his movements that treats battle like a dance, and he LOVES to talk (being god's messenger puts a lot of words in his mouth). michael is a sharp contrast to that, entirely silent as he moves in vicious, staccato movements that reek of a brutal efficiency and a single desire to end the battle. whereas gabriel delights in the fight itself, michael is clearly only concerned about the victory. v1 can appreciate it for its distinct, cutting brutality, but it becomes an increasing issue that michael is an entirely foreign combatant with a very unique strategy - every so often, he seems to entirely change his fighting style. v1 knows there are always patterns, idiosyncrasies that betray an individual, but michael's are incredibly difficult to pin down in the limited time it knows it has. and so he continually resets its learning, frustrating its ai in a way that's paradoxically thrilling for it, but it knows now isn't the time. it decides to follow mike's lead instead, attempting to end the battle as soon as it can, but another problem arises that finally trips its alarms - michael's blood doesn't seem to work very well. it does repair it in some capacity, but it's about half as effective as it should be, similar in many respects to the old blood that runs in rivers through hell. put all that together, and v1 could easily make a mistake that turns disastrous.

michael knows he's doing a terrible thing to gabriel, but he would do anything in service to his brothers, and he would fully believe that playing the villain now is necessary. to him this is sickness, perversion, to love an object that michael believes has no sentience and certainly has no soul, marks the full degradation of gabriel. again, it is his fault. gabriel's faith had always wavered, and being worked to death by a heretical council has completely decayed his morals, with v1 the object of that fall. there is something selfish in michael, a part of him knowing he does this because if he eliminates this idol, perhaps gabriel could repent. maybe he can use purgatory to heal him, to save him, to pull a fallen angel back from the depths of treachery and restore him to his former glory. it's an abominable thought, he knows it's wrong, but if he can gather gabriel back into the fold, back to heaven and to himself, maybe his life lingering on like this still has value. it pushes him ever forward in battle against a machine far more capable than he would have thought, but god tempered him to fight anything in hell, in merciless pursuit that burned through his own divine fire. his strength is similar to that of gabriel's, but it has been honed for a singular purpose.

v1 knows when a fight is lost, michael has learned much the way it does (cheater!!) and he sees what it protects, he begins quickly to tear into its exposed blood ports (bullshit prototype). v1 is forced to be defensive, something it's much less adept at, but again michael sees just how it curls in on itself - while he likely gets nails driven right into his face for it, he grabs hold and rips open its chest plate. v1's very mind. it screeches at him so loudly it's actually disorienting, but there is nothing it can do with damaged insulation even as the blast of absolute zero instantly freezes michael's dead hands. the temperature is immediately too high, the particles kept in stasis suddenly moving at unimaginable speed and instantly destroying v1's ability to move, to think, to exist. a split second of its hud flashing garbled nonsense in dire warning before it all cuts offline, but by then gabriel's virtues have fetched him, begging him to come help. and a fallen angel at full strength, now blindingly enraged, isn't going to go well for a michael that's just struggled against the scourge of hell, especially when the fight would need to be much more delicate considering he's done all of this to save gabriel. but he can't understand. not now. but gabe doesn't really give two shits when mike simply vanishes, because he's not the priority and in fact would just be a waste of time.

because v1 is bled out on the floor, its body torn open with its computer exposed as its refrigerator desperately blasts out frigid air on emergency power. without thinking, gabriel takes what's left of his wings, ripping out his tortured feathers in shocks of agony that should render him motionless, and packs them inside v1's computer in delicate urgency. deathly cold, burning his own hypothermic body but just right for v1's needs, before he's done enough and can quickly switch to clawing up his own arms for the blood it now needs. it's all quick fixes, enough to hopefully keep it sustained until he can get it somewhere safe and he can revive it. because it's still intact enough and he knows it can live (v2 proved how surprisingly hardy they can be) but BOY if this wouldn't piss him off to an extreme extent with michael. like gabriel would know, in a calm mind detached from his personal feelings, that michael was doing what he thought right...but what does that matter when he's so willing to hurt the undeserving (like the ferryman) or those he loves? tbh between something like this and the ferryman, if mike returned too soon afterward they could get into a fight they both REALLY regret.

[bingobongobonko]

Hi Bingo! I just wanted to say that I've been lurking and looking at your art for your lancer campaign for a while now and I think it's so cool! You've kinda inspired me to check out the system for myself too! I hope it's not too much trouble/making you retread anything you've talked about before, but I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts on the system and how it's worked out for your campaign! I really love mecha stuff, but I think the genre can be pretty rife with militarism that I'm not super into. I get the sense though that you've been able to find a good way to slot these really cool characters into the setting and focus on their interactions while also getting the fun of that sweet sweet mech combat. My inquiry is very low stakes haha, so nw if you don't have time to gather all your thoughts (I know that if I was tasked to talk about my own campaigns my head would burst into flames just trying to sift through what I'd want to say :P) Anyway, just a little friendly wave to you to say your art is very inspirational, and keep up the great work!

OH WOW this is . whuhh. WOW! sorry im like. wtff. i mean i ramble about my characters a lot but i didn't think anyone else actually gave a fuck which is completely ok, i just WHUHH..!!! holy shit. excitement aside, i get where you're coming from. honestly i was never into the mecha genre, but lancer rpg really made me realize how cool it is! like im not a really technical guy, and i feel like lancer is VERY strategy-heavy in combat; unless you know what you're doing and what everything does, you can easily get overwhelmed with all the features and all the things to consider in the math. for me its a lot because i struggle with spatial understanding and any sort of mathematics. that's my only real gripe on the system, but that might also just be every other system as well. it's more of a personal issue than that of the system, my friends all picked it up super quick. as for the genre, yeah, i find militaristic shit a drag and mecha has the same feel to me. its got a layer of professionalism and seriousness i don't enjoy, nor wish to play along with, so i get what you mean yeah. thankfully my friend who dms the campaign is just. Holy fuck; she just has a huuuge extra care for character stories and weaving them into the narrative she explores. so really, its her i've to thank for making mecha stuff FUN for me. lancer can certainly run hand-in-hand with militaristic-focused rp, i was in a oneshot with that sole focus and while it was interesting, without that interesting narrative stuff you kind of lose steam, but ive grown so fond of dog days cuz of how my friend lets our characters develop AND helps them do that. that and the way she sets up the story, just. FUUUUCK. the military is an afterthought in what is a fight against time and para-causality sinking its teeth into what little sanity we have. we fight against something that is a victim and a perpetrator. we're the worst people to be tasked to be saving an entire planet too, but here we are. as cheesy as it is, it's all about who you play with. thats the feel i get about most systems. honestly why im so ehhh about playing with strangers, when i'd rather play with people i like. all systems strike me as more of a tool; its the way you use em yk? the experience you get from them are more reflective of who you're telling a story with (or fighting alongside, there's no right way to play. i just really like narrative storytelling). so really, ive to thank my friends, especially @spaginithethird who introduced me to lancer in the first place as a dm!!!!!!!!!! TO A LOT OF SYSTEMS ACTUALLY shes rlly knowledgeable abt this stuff and very very very sweet too o7 so yeah really, its a really fun system BUT to me, i wouldnt be playing lancer if i didn't have a narrative to go by and follow with people i like. i am always sayin this but its my favorite thing when it comes to ttrpgs

[gren-arlio]

As my laptop dies, the quest for knowledge doesn't. Welcome to Episode 7 of (Waku) Puyo Extras. (Feat. A bit about a trope.)

(At what point do we begin to feel bad for Schezo?)

Hey everyone, it's the dude who translates a niche video game for a living. As my laptop seizes to exist, my phone survives, and it's thankfully enough to do Waku Puyo Extras, as well as doing some stuff to work under Puyo Preservation as a proofreader.

As writing this, (September 25th-30), my laptop cannot run most things anymore, including what I use for translations, but I'm not the one to leave people in the dust. So rather, I decided to work on Extras because hey, I like writing these and people kinda enjoy these well.

I thought this time, with my inconsistent as all hell schedule, speak about these today:

Honey Bee. Weird pick, I know, but it could've been worse, and at least she's super hard carried by the Waku Puyo Manga. Plus, her origin is pretty interesting.

Something a little goofy. Schezo's "love life", or really, the people who chase[d] him around during the run of Puyo and Madou. That, and the trend itself in the games, since it goes even to Puyo Puyo Tetris 2.

As per the (Kinda) Dead Laptop Arc I'm going through, there are no videos for a good while.

And before we begin, I want to ask y'all a question:

Both will be covered but for a TLDR for people who dunno:

Serilly's Happy Birthday is a sorta Princess-Maker (Where you're basically raising a young girl, but in this case it's Serilly) game where you help plan Serilly's birthday on a week-to-week basis and invite people for her birthday. Gameplay itself I dont fully know myself, but I DO know that there are several endings to this game depending on who you decide to speak to and befriend.

Arle's Travel Log is a text-adventure game where Arle and Satan fight over Carbuncle and get blasted back in time, and Arle and Carbuncle trying to get past to the present. Game itself has some actual Madou Monogatari-like exploration, a point and click battle system, and features not only the Madou cast, but some actual historical figures and JUMP HERO, another series made by COMPILE.

This poll will last about a week. With this, I really hope you enjoy.

-----

So, What're Honey Bee's Origins?

Honey Bee's origin is kinda weird, similar to Kikimora. She first appears in a Disc System Daimadou Senryaku Monogatari, a turn based strategy game, as one of the "Units" Arle and her enemies can use.

These are the rivals Arle can face, ranging from Easy on top, Moderate in middle, and Difficult on the bottom. Yeah idk how Witch or Zoh got into the Difficult status. Oh, and the tile on the very bottom right? That's where the final boss is...which is Rulue.

And on the bottom screenshot, you can see Archan and Kodomo as well, who also made their grand appearance here.

Now you couldn't exactly pay me to tell you how the gameplay really works, but I do know that this game got a balance patch in form of another game. We getting the Street Fighter treatment for these. I'm thankful to even find gameplay, as another Disc Station game, Madou Sugoroku, I legit can't find any footage for.

...Maybe the next Extras will be about these game, I dunno.

-----

So Honey Bee herself had a kinda interesting origin, even though she was sorta a blank slate along with the rest who joined her. SUN didn't exactly do much better.

She first appears in Arle's route and comes down trying to stab Arle with her syringe. Arle dodges and says that what Bee just did was dangerous, but Bee chases her with the syringe. And on Schezo's route, she actually stabs Schezo, but his head must be made of steel because he thinks it's just his imagination and walks away.

(The moment of the attack, 1996, Circa)

So not the best, but she got something, right?

Well. Waku Puyo blows everything out the water...in the manga.

BECAUSE HONEY BEE IS SO ANNOYING AS AN ENEMY.

She comes in and does a few things. Either poison you, lower your attack, or makes you sleep. When she's about at 1/3 of her HP, she retreats very quickly, which is more annoying than it sounds. She sounds evil in this game, man. So much so that my friend @kirstenonic05 made a nice little video about her experiences.

Here.

(Song used is Lying Coldy in Ace Attorney: Miles Edgeworth Investigations.)

Besides bosses, from my pals experiences, Honey Bee holds the distinct honor of being the most annoying enemy to fight.

So how does the Manga carry her?

It HEAVILY carries her, 90% of her personality as a whole is there to be honest.

We meet her in the first volume, and she says her goal quite clearly: To beat Schezo, even though she doesn't even know why she has to herself. Even Schezo's confused as hell.

However, unlike Puyo SUN, she doesn't just attack the man outta nowhere. She gets one ACTUAL look at Schezo's face, and is flabbergasted by how pretty he is. (In this style of art? He's alright for the most part)

After some shenanigans going around, what with Bee stabbing him and her getting smacked around because she's barely the size of Schezo's neck and head, decides that she's not gonna kill him, and rather join him for whatever cause he has because...Love I guess. Damn, love really does make people do crazy shit.

She then (To the dismay of Schezo) follows him around for a majority of the adventure, even helping him with fights occasionally, and being absolutely pissed when Incubus appears and tries to seduce Schezo.

I should mention here that Bee thinks that she and Schezo are husband and wife. Or at least "together". That's how many on Schezo?

Now, if you've seen the Serilly Extras post, you know that she was also there with Schezo, but at the start, rather than try to help Serilly, who was manipulated by Satan to be there because he said he was her friend, try to attack her several times to know where the Orb was...only for Schezo to smack her aside several times.

Thankfully, she got the memo and decided to help Serilly out, only to get upset when Serilly saves Schezo and he carries her bridal style, and also when Schezo says he'll visit again if he feels like it.

After Schezo gets possessed by Incubus (I'm not saying seduced. He full on got possessed,) Bee goes to Momomo, who then goes to Serilly for help and...yeah the manga ended there.

So yeah, that's Bee's importance in the manga. Quite a large one, but to Schezo, she's just another annoying admirer/person who loves him.

(If you came for the analysis, this ends here. Thanks for reading up to here, and enjoy my goofy ramble about a trope.)

-----

Speaking of Annoying Admirers/"Lovers":

Poor Schezo. Man's trying to live his life and just gets chased around by some of the oddest people out there, or in some cases, stuck with them. This has obviously not been the case for Modern Puyo, but back then? Oh boy. Lets cover that.

Let's start with the one from the manga itself, the one y'all JUST saw:

Honey Bee:

Frankly, Schezo got it rough if a Bee thinks they're married, when in-game, she's easily the most infuriating enemy out there excluding bosses. She frankly loves the dude, much to Schezo's anger. She sees other girls talking to him or whenever Incubus decides to be wacky as cheating, and gets really upset at that.

And that's not even including Serilly, where she tried to attack her over it...and also the orb but shhh, forget that. We forget them here quite often.

-----

Incubus

You may be wondering, "What does he do again?" and I'm glad you asked. Man spends the entire time chasing around Schezo trying to "Seduce" him and such, much to Honey Bee's dismay and chargin.

Though like any villain, he does have a reason. Y'see, the big thing about Waku Puyo is these orbs, the big shiny things that are important. Incubus wants those orbs, and when Schezo gets one from Serilly, he does possess Schezo for it. Love it or not, the guy had a fairly decent plan. I have to unfortunately respect it. Poor Bee, though.

(Yeah, I forgot this happened, ngl.)

-----

Succubus:

Another one is Succubus. Now with this one, this is more due to things like, oh idk,

She's a damn Succubus. It's her job.

Incubus I was a little confused about, but in general, it made sense, Succubus is just doing what she usually does. We all know what she did to Schezo in Madou Saturn, but in Waku Waku Puyo Puyo Dungeon, she does appear in all routes in Battle Castle as well as in Schezo's route.

In both her boss fights, she tries her absolute best to make Schezo her servant...to basically little avail, because he was tempted at first. (Also, in Arle's route, she makes an exception for her because she only goes for "Good-looking men," but Arle can be excluded.)

-----

Witch:

If you've followed me at any point in time or casually read whatever she does in Madou, you know as well as I do that Witch chases this guy around. A lot. She could be considered the OG Schezo Chaser. (God I'm laughing at that name during typing)

They began to get associated in Tower of the Magician, and there, they're going their own routes but they team up sometimes for puzzles and the sort. Nothing bad. Then it happens again in SUN, with the now infamous "I want you," to Schezo, before clarifying its his robe she wants. I feel like this one was a genuine misunderstanding.

Then out of fucking nowhere, she dials it up to 11 in 1998 with both Waku Waku Puyo Puyo Dungeon AND Madou Saturn. Least in Saturn, she was stupid curious about this "Perverted man" and asked to touch him, and that's about it. In Waku Puyo, she just...chases him the entire time for his clothes, and keeps saying how cool he and the robe are. IK I mention this often but it's relevant to this for once. Plus, Waku Puyo is like 50% of my brand.

Then she does the unthinkable and continued it in PPT2...yes I know Marle possessed her but still. It's funny. And to quickly mention 20th, she does do her iconic SUN line again, so Wahoo.

And special shout out to when she told everyone about the meaning of Schezo's name during that beauty contest. Gotta respect that she knows the lore.

(I don't think any of us expected this. But it's hilarious. Unfortunately I will not be submitting to you.)

----

About this "Lover chases their crush"/Chasers Trope;

They're pretty common in Puyo as a whole. Rulue with Satan, Satan with Arle, Schezo with Arle for straight power, Witch with Schezo, Draco with beauty, Strange Klug with trying to get out that fucking book, list goes on.

I won't deny, it's a little outplayed, and Rulue specifically got it the roughest. Like 60% of her is just about Satan, and I just find that wild, least in modern Puyo. I think Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 did it wonderfully, as Rulue still very much loves Satan, but it's not her entire character.

Maybe Puyo Tetris 2 is just really well written, I dunno.

Overall...I'm fine with this trope. If done well it can be very funny, just hope to God it's the main thing about the character.

And I think with that statement, that'll be all for this week. Hope you enjoyed this, and be sure to vote on the poll too.

Adios.

[popculturebuffet]

Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers: Double 0' Chipmunk Review (Comission for RainbowSixVegasSamurai)

Hello all you happy rangers and it's a new day yes it is because I got a comission from a new person. Always lovely. Longtime fan first time comissioner rainbowsixvegas samurai wanted me to take a look at some cccchip n dale, with it's 007 spoof Double O Chipmunk.

Admitely.. i'm not a huge spy fiction guy. It's just not a thing I seek out outside of mission impossible. So you'd THINK this would be a weird fit for me. And while it kinda is there is one part of it I have a small soft spot for: parodies. I watched archer for some time, I loved the film Spy, and as for the soundtrack to the musical spies are forever

I don't seek them out persay, but I can enjoy them as the tropes of the genre are woven into the pop culture and they have a hightned goofiness to them most modern spy stuff, trying ot be more realistic, dosen't have. So I was fine with covering one and seeing what chip n dale brought to the table. And the premise is pretty neat: Dale watches a ton of the CND universes Bond parody and wants to try and apply that to rescue rangering and it swerves into another neat plot from there. Does it work or is it shaken not stirred? let's find out.

The setup is simple but effective: Dale and Zipper are watching a Dirk Suave, Double'O Super Spy film. And it has easily the worst part of the episode: Odd Shoe, Dirk's cowardly racist caracture of an asian person who works as his sidekick. Bond films certainly had their racisim but .. this was never a thing and I struggle to think why the writers here thought it was a good thing to ad. I'd just.. like to go one disney afternoon review that isn't goof troop without slamming head first into casual late 80's racisim

The rest of the episode thankfully isn't.. anything like that and we get into the main meat nice and quickly: Dale's been watching these films a lot and Chip, as usual is just a tad pissy about it. In this case he's mad Dale didn't go with them to look for cases at the police station. Which is just a hilariously .. weird statment for me. I had to look it up and see if they really have that many human related cases and well, they do, so looking for weird crimes involving animals makes more sense than It hought. That said Chip being pissy at Dale for not going when A) he'd have to know Dale wasn't going up front and it dosen't come off like Dale lied about why he wasn't going and B) This REALLY isn't a 4 person operation. You need ONE of them at a minimum, probably 2 in case they find a case in progress and need to go NOW.

In fact having someone at your HQ when your not on a mission and your public figures with a known headquarters, is just.. smart. It's the reason the avengers in the comics have Jarvis the butler. I mean Dale could be doing something to actually help out while their there, true, but it's weird Chip assumes they all have to be there to talk to clients and set up missions. He's basically the team's leader: it's HIS job to meet with clients unless he has better buisness. It's something I can see even in say Helluva Boss: Blitzo may be a lot of things and most of those are a hot mess.. but he's not handled the

Side of things exactly one episode I can think of and he was understandably worried about his sister. If Chip dosen't want to formally say he's in charge because Dale would throw a fit fine but then don't get pissy when Dale dosen't do what you'd rathe rhim do like study a crime file or something, especailly when that something DOSEN'T require him.

Not only that while Dale is spending tons of time watching movies.. he IS actually planning to help the buisness, suggesting they take the super spy tricks from the movie and apply them to their stuff. Is it the BEST buisness strategy? Not really and I get Chip dismissing it to a point: It'd be a possible waste of time and resources. I'm really more sore for Chip's reason for disliking it: it's because Dale thinks it's a good idea.

So Dale naturally tries to prove chip wrong. And the how is well done in how bad an idea it is: he tries to dick around in gadget's lab and make the gadgets. Naturally this goes caca with his wrist gas grenades just falling off and his helicopter pack blowing upa nd everyone laughs at him... and the poor guy runs out while Chip is just happy to be right.

Gadget goes to comfort him but Dale's convinced becaues he screwed this bad idea up.. hes' just a screw up and no one respects him. Which is quite sadly a mood for me. Granted he did screw up but in my eyes it's not just the failure... it's the laughter. It's the fact Chip.. dosen't take him seriously. We see both sides as Chip, while annoying, does have a point Dale dicks around a lot.. but Dale was GENUINELY trying to help> He reminds me of Hank Venture: his heart is in the right place but his head is in some weird parallel dimension that only makes sense to him. It's an objectively stupid plan, but what makes you feel for Dale is what it meant for him: in a team where the others are his detective best friend, gorgeous genius crush and badass aussie, it's hard to not feel he has no real role here.

Gadget feels bad and decides to help. Her plan is an old sitcommy standby: fake a mission so Dale feels better. It's the kind of plot you've seen a million times and just gets boring. It only works here because the work is old enough. Not old enough for it to have NEVER been a trope but old enough to be before Spongebob did it better or a million other things ran it into the ground.

So as seen in the article image, Gadget shows up playing her femme fetale sister and sends dale on a mission to get microfilm. She also kisses him deeply. And this episode must be the holy grail for Gadget and Dale shippers. The attempts to comfort him, doing this whole scheme, kissing him really damn hard, even if it's for the bit. And honestly out of the two options in the main love triangle.. Dale just fits her better. He's got this loose weirdo energy that fits her spaciness. Chip just seems updight.. and also gets horribly jealous over this even though his bullying is the whole reason this game happened. As you'd expect, some real spies show up for a real microfilm, it gets mixed up, Dale finds out it's a game but still thinks it's real and plans to mess with them only to end up in a real thing. This part of the episode is ab it weak if you've seen enough of these. While using this cliche dosen't hurt most of the episode as the disguises are fun enough as is Gadget's hastily made double o gadgets for the first part, it does hurt this portion.

So our heroes end up inside a giant doomsday weapon. The spies finallyr ealize dale REALLY thinks this is a game after everyone tried to tell them that, and this is really what helps the use of this cliche and makes the episode: the fact instead of INSTANTLY getting that "shit this is real moment" the villians actually get to use this to their advantages. Our heroes escape in time of course to avoid getting blasted when Dale turns the rat's bosses super tank on, but it's still neat to see some sort of twist.

So Dale pilots a tank with his mind to chase the spies

Chip apologizes, our heroes win and beat the spy. And this episode is .. alright. It's not the greatest bit of storytelling, Chip's a bit of an asshole, and the plot i've seen a billion times but it's charming. And not just because of that gadget outfit. It's got a sense of fun to it, it's not reallyt aking this plot too seriously, has a nice twist on it, and it's fun seeing the hastily made gadgets gadget whipped up. It's not a bad watch, it's just nothing incredible.

Thanks for reading

[coldgoldlazarus]

I guess that's the other reason I decided to stop, with Arknights. The whole Games As Service endless grind was bad enough, the "you can't ever fall off/take a break because you'll never be able to catch back up" was worse, but it also just didn't help any that the handling of the difficulty curve was also going in a direction I didn't care for.

I liked the moderately challenging stages, where there was enough of a strategic requirement that you couldn't just plunk down any ol' operator anywhere and win guaranteed, but there was still the freedom to try to figure out your own strategies using your personal roster, and with some trial and error of a few failed attempts, find a way to best utilize nearly any combination to beat it. (And usually with juuust enough breathing room to recover if you made a fumble midstage.) Those All Three Star guides were great for a reason after all.

But it really felt like, after a while, the difficulty reached a point where it really stopped being fun, and was oriented solely to like, the sweaty crowd. CC was the worst about this, and thankfully at least optional, but I could still feel some of that design philosophy in a lot of Chapter 6 and certain events, too.

There was no longer that same sort of freedom, now it's like, your options are either: (have and) bring an extremely specific combination of lesser characters/archetypes; or just (have and) bring or borrow Surtr or Holungday. And no matter which option gets chosen, the timings are so tight and the required strategy so precise that even the slightest fumble or mistiming could completely tank an attempt, leading in to upwards of fifty tries before finally lucking into a win, and by that point feeling so frustrated that it smothers any hint of satisfaction in the crib. Basically, no longer able to meaningfully choose your team, and all but required to either cheese or use a guide or both on the strategy front. Plus, for the events, a time limit to work with.

And yeah I know that sort of extremely technical execution-based gameplay is fun for some people, but for me it really isn't. That stuff was just a waste of time, energy, and cognitive power that left me too spent to be able to focus on the story cutscene rewards afterward.

And like, borrowing a Silverash or Eyja was a thing from pretty early on, but I still feel like there was a point where those aforementioned Three Star guides having to break up the theme with the addition of an OP six star went from like, an infrequent thing for mainly challenge mode stages, to happening with every single event boss on the normal mode stages, along with a few non-boss ones as well.

Yes, you control the buttons you press, you don't have to level or use the OP ops, but it shouldn't feel like the game is punishing you for making that choice. Or for just not having (and leveling) a specific operator or archetype in the first place. Or for being a late joiner, or being an early joiner like me but taking a few hiatuses from the game. At that point, is it really a choice?

I loved the game for being enjoyably challenging, when it was actually being a challenge. I hated CC for being just actual bullshit, and I could feel the bullshit spreading elsewhere as things went on. The fun came of figuring out what could be done with what I had, rather than from having to find a guide on what needed to be done and execute its instructions perfectly. Along with having to hope a friend would have an E2 Level 90 Ifrit for me to borrow.

Basically, I loved Arknights, but I don't think it loved me, because I feel like the devs always meant it to be a diffent kind of game than the one I was first enjoying. And that's a real shame, honestly.

[cutekittenlady]

Tumblr Plays Pokemon White 2- Part 11

While on my way to beat up some weirdo cosplayer I met in a sewer who should I run into but Bianca!

She said she saw me in the city and had to catch up to me. She winds up giving me, of all things, a dowsing machine. I'd read about these. Supposedly they can help you find dropped items. After all trainers go all over the place and even pokemon drop stuff. The dowsing machine is supposed to help you find stuff like that. HOnestly, I'm not against the idea. Espeically since I've heard of people making some really good money using dowsing machines! I can only hope it'll benefit me here.

Before I head onto the route the clown guy gives me a rare candy for completing their scavenger hunt. Guess that was worth soemthing after all.

Anyway with that I head out onto Route 4....

Where it is LITERALLY sandstorming!

And I JUST showered back at the Pokemon Center too!

Seriously Bianca couldn't have said something?! Just a, "Hey, heads up theres a sand storm out there!" would have been appreciated!

UGH.

I turn on the dowsing machine. If I GOTTA move through all this sand, I might as well see if I can find any treasure. There are obviously trainers here too. OH well. Lets see what our new friend Dusty can do!

The answer is, not a lot actually. Despite the sandstorm giving her a speed boost she still got taken out by the first pokemon of the first trainer we faced on the route. Oh well, I probably should have predicted something like that. After all we did JUST catch her.

That Colress guy running his mouth probbaly put ideas into my head.

Bentley is more than enough to take the Sandile out after Dusty did a bit of damage to it. Though unlike Dusty the sandstorm hurts him. Even so, its pretty clear that Bentley will be essential if I'm going to deal with all the ground types out here in the desert. Which is why I swap him out for Molly to take out the trainers herdier.

After the battle I give Dusty a revive. Even if shes not qutie strong enough to take out a ton of opponents yet, shes still the only one on the team resistent to the sand storm. I grab the exp. share I got earlier and give it to Dusty. If Dusty, if it works like its supposed to then Bentley should be able to win a few fights and Dusty can get some of the experience.

Oh Arceus the weirdo sewer guy has blocked the road.

That's not reassuring.

I mean... to the side of you but yeah. Did you move a bunch of rocks in the way?

Colress explains that these are actually Pokemon who are called crustle. He uses some weird device to wake them up and get them off the road.

Not gonna lie, seems mighty suspect this guy just so happens to have a device that magically clears the road.

Then outta friggin nowhere this guy mentions team plasma like its the name of his favorite coffee place.

Yeah and your not getting it! I dont need you looking up my address in the phone book!

Your a lousy conversationalist Colress.

Colress starts off with Magnemite and since Bentley was already out teaching Dusty hes up first. I start off with leech seed hoping it'll do something and magnemite hits me wtih thunderwave.

Hey! thats MY strategy!

Regardless I had bentley use leech see which helps counteract the damage from the sand storm. I send in Dusty hoping her ground type attack will do something to magnemite. Mudslap is actually very effective, but so is magnet bomb agianst Dusty, Leech seed heals her up by not by a lot. I have her use mudslap again which nearly takes magnemite out but it uses magnet bomb again and nearly KOs Dusty. Thankfully the sandstorm does the rest for us and buffs magnemite into defeat.

Colress then sounds out Klink. Deciding Dustycould use the training I give her a water and have her face off against Klink. Klink uses gear grind on Dusty which takes her out.

Bad call on my part.

I send in Molly to melt that metal which she does but not before getting hit with a thundershock and buffested by the sandstorm.

With that though I do beat Colress.

He gives me a bottle of 'protein'

This is getting sold the first chance I get. Make someone else deal with it. He blabs on something about if only we could talk to pokemon we could bring out all their power and then runs off into the desert.

Like I said.

CREE-PY.

After getting my butt kicked by a few trainers I find a rest house amongst the old ruins. THe lady inside heals me up and offers to continue doing so. Now that I have a place on the route to heal up, its training time!

I fight all of the trainers around the area, taking rests at the old ruin when I need a break or one of my pokemon faints. The net result is that Dusty and the others manage to gain some levels and learn some new moves. Most notably Dusty learns dig and Polux learns covet. Not a lot of improvement but good enough.

I move on.

This must be the road into Nimbasa. Happy to finally find it. I cant even see five feet in front of me in this sandstorm.

Huh theres a lot of sand around the entrance to Nimbasa. Would've thought they'd clear that out. Oh well.

Ah the gate to Nimbasa. Good thing too, its getting dark. First thing I'm gonna do is find a hotel room, have a nice hot bath, and reeeeelax.

[juminies]

I finished V's route! knocked out both the normal and good endings in one, of course. I was going to make notes as I was playing so I could somewhat concisely talk about him & his route when I was finished but I ended up not really doing that aside from a few random things like this

so we're just going from the heart.

while I was playing I was actually fairly certain I was going to end up with at least one bad story ending accidentally because well, he's very confusing isn't he..? you really have to find a sort of balance, which I found hard to do particularly when it came to talking to rika. I never had any idea what I was meant to be saying to her and it was also difficult to hold myself back from being hostile sometimes. the woman talks some utter nonsense. I went with the strategy "hear her out but don't agree with her" and it seemed to work. though I have to admit that I flirted with her in texts and calls just to see what she'd say, and I (unfortunately?) do not I regret doing so... being praised by pretty women (even insane ones) is my kryptonite 😔 the voice acting from both rika and ray when it came to specifically emotional scenes was soooo immersive and enjoyable. I sometimes find rika's voice in normal conversation to be a little grating, honestly, but when she's screaming? crying? shouting? panicking? her VA did SUCH a good job.

now, V... I mean this in the most affectionate way possible, you guys weren't joking about him being pathetic. mind you I love a pathetic character who consistently makes awful choices, but calling this man frustrating is an understatement. I quite often found myself realllly struggling to understand what he was thinking, or what he wanted. his lack of willingness to accept help even when he knew he was about to do something quite frankly ludicrous was the least admirable bravery(?) I've ever witnessed, and he is PERSISTENT. it made me feel relatively distant from him for a fair amount the route, mainly because the events unfolding just meant I felt horrible for the members of the RFA and he absolutely was not doing anyone any favours (though he thought differently). I was somewhat concerned I wasn't going to recover from my perpetual state of "?????" but thankfully I actually did in the end. maybe it's my inner "I can fix them" coming out (isn't that the premise of mysme really?), but him being so frustrating sometimes sort of made it feel more rewarding when he really starts to trust and believe you, lol. there were definitely moments that got me in my feelings within the last few days, his heartfelt spiels about learning to love at the forefront. it was nice to see him not only believing in you but actually starting to have faith in himself too – after how self sacrificing he's been he deserves to put himself first. that said, while sweet, I found the good ending to be a little underwhelming. I know a bulk of potentially more fulfilling content is in VAE, but I absolutely do not have enough hourglasses to play for myself so reading the wikipedia summary will have to suffice for me for now.

tl;dr I really enjoyed the route! for me it was a level of dramatic and angsty that made it consistently entertaining and surprising without feeling like it was too much. it was an absolute rollercoaster both plot wise and emotionally, and I had fun experiencing that with so little knowledge of what was to come next. it definitely boosted my affection for V, given how little I legitimately knew about him before :)

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

Much Ado About MOANA

Say it ain't so!

Walt Disney Pictures is working on a live-action "reimagining" of MOANA that will involve Dwayne Johnson himself, who of course voiced Maui in the original animated feature directed by Ron Clements and John Musker for Walt Disney Animation Studios and released in 2016.

As of now, the movie has three forthcoming extensions: This project, a land at Epcot in Walt Disney World, and an animated series being produced at WDAS (namely its recently-opened Vancouver unit) for Disney+.

I used to grouse to the moon and back about how much I detested much of these particular remakes and reimaginings of Disney's animated features and characters. You know, the ones made in the aftermath of Tim Burton's ALICE IN WONDERLAND throughout the 2010s, and even into now. I used to see them as something of a threat to animation's reputation, and they all came at us fast! MALEFICENT in 2014, CINDERELLA in 2015, THE JUNGLE BOOK (a largely CGI movie with one live actor and maybe like, 5 real-life plants) and ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS in 2016, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST in 2017, and a five-finger-punch of DUMBO, ALADDIN, THE LION KING, a MALEFICENT sequel, and LADY AND THE TRAMP in 2019... And then MULAN in 2020, CRUELLA in 2021, and PINOCCHIO this past year. Mixed in with these movies were a genuine new take on hybrid film PETE'S DRAGON and a legacy sequel to MARY POPPINS, MARY POPPINS RETURNS. Even Burton's ALICE, which got this whole ball rolling, was pretty much its own thing, ditto the 2016 sequel.

On the horizon? PETER PAN & WENDY, THE LITTLE MERMAID, SNOW WHITE, MUFASA: THE LION KING, BAMBI, THE SWORD IN THE STONE, a JUNGLE BOOK sequel, THE ARISTOCATS, ROBIN HOOD, THE CHRONICLES OF PRYDAIN (which the 1985 animated feature THE BLACK CAULDRON was adapted from), THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, HERCULES, and LILO & STITCH. Now MOANA joins the ranks, the first all-CG animated Disney film to get the "live-action" treatment.

That's a ton of remakes in the span of almost 10 years, if we peg the actual start of this trend with 2014's MALEFICENT.

I think I've only seen... ALICE IN WONDERLAND, and THE JUNGLE BOOK, in full. I refused to watch the others. Back then it was out of protest and me just genuinely not being interested, nowadays? It's just the latter. These things aren't for me, and that's okay I guess. They haven't erased animation, nor did other recent "realistic" takes on animated classics, such as the 2017 GHOST IN THE SHELL movie with Scarlett Johansson. It hit me one day at my cinema job when THE LION KING was released. The Cinemark that I work at used to have a cart for movie merchandise, including things like T-shirts and Funko Pops and such. Most of the merchandise for the remakes that came out that year? Were for the animated originals... (I use the word loosely, but... You know what I mean!) I'd say it was an 85/15 ratio. Some stuff for the new remake, but mostly stuff for the classic animated movies that inspired them... It hit me... These are just over-glorified theatrical re-releases of the animated classics, made to move some merch and stuff at your local Hot Topic. It's kind of a weird transition from the way Disney used to keep their films in the public eye, whether it was a re-release cycle from the 1940s up until the mid-1990s, or their video releases being available for a limited time before being retired to the infamous "Disney Vault" (a ruthless marketing strategy thankfully put to rest with the arrival of Disney+ in 2019).

But in 2017-ish, I remember just being so goddamn grumpy about these things. Made worse by various directors, actors, and producers involved with the remakes making disparaging remarks about the classic movies for being... Well... **Animated**. Imagine that! The director of live-action BEAUTY AND THE BEAST declared that filming that story with real people gave it layers of psychological depth and nuance or some such bullshit. An actor on ALADDIN said almost verbatim the same exact thing. Disney stressed that their LION KING remake wasn't animated, even though the entire thing except a single shot was computer generated and "animated"! Then of course, several folks involved with the remakes making up nonsense about the princesses and heroines in the originals. We're seeing that now, even, with THE LITTLE MERMAID. Though these particular remarks about classic Disney heroines are nothing new, they remain nonetheless a bit irritating and proof that media literacy is lacking in many people. Then again, we do live in a world where people constantly parrot nonsense like "Batman is a rich guy who beats up poor people" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is about being bullied until you're useful to your bullies."

Some people just don't pay attention to what they watch, do they?

But really, the remakes come, make a lot of noise, often times make a crapton of money at the box office... And then they just... Disappear. Like, it was insisted that BEAUTY AND THE BEAST 2017 fixed the plot holes of the 1991 movie and was "darker", more "adult", whatever- Uhhh, I don't really feel its presence anymore, whereas the 1991 animated movie directed by Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale? Still here, still beloved, still holds up. I guess you could not outmode the dumb ol' kiddie cartoon, now could you? All that "darker" and "more psychology" talk is gimmicks at best, and most folks just kinda watch 'em because they saw the originals... and then that's it. It's a movie, it's a thing, it exists. You got what was on the tin: It's [insert Disney movie here], all over again!

This all being said... Now the CG movies are fair game, and possibly Pixar's some time in the future. It ain't just the 2D movies they're going after anymore. Look at Universal, they're readying a HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON live-action movie for 2025 with Dean DeBlois himself - director of all three of the animated DreamWorks HTTYD movies - at the helm! It's either going to be a straight-up live-action version of the DreamWorks adaptation released back in 2010, or it's going to be a whole new take on Cressida Cowell's book series. I hope it's the latter, honestly, then I might give it my attention.

To this day, many rightfully concerned folks still feel that these live-action/photorealistic remakes insult pure animation. Pure animation as in, animation that KNOWS it's animated. Straight-up cartoon or abstract. That Hollywood sees animated movies as but a "stepping stone" to superior live-action, but really... What I see is this... Money. People love an animated movie or show? Money. How many different coats of paint can we put on the car?

Some are asking... Why not just a MOANA sequel?

The weird thing about that is, Ron Clements and John Musker left Disney Animation. They were last seen developing a METAL MEN movie for Warner Animation Group. Of course, the directors being off on a new adventure doesn't mean anything in capitalism, Disney could plow ahead with a MOANA sequel if they wanted to. But they choose not to at the moment, only this and a D+ series. Kind of keeping in line with a history of not really making sequels in-house, and the days of outsourced direct-to-video fare has been loooooong over. (The remakes are often compared to the DTV sequels of the '90s and '00s, and for good reason. They're little more than brand extensions, and you can ex 'em out of the equation if you so choose to do so. Disney EU or Disney "Elseworlds" if you will...)

But what's actually seemingly upsetting is that... In the past few months, on the year of Disney's 100th anniversary... Most of the movie announcements have been nothing but continuations and brand extensions. They also serve as a nice distraction from needless layoffs, but yes... The big announcements have been things like TOY STORY 5, FROZEN III, ZOOTOPIA 2, Live-Action MOANA, etc. etc.

However, one ought to look closer. In-between all the franchisey stuff and synergetic things, there's still original movies being made... Like, there's not only 20th Century Studios continuing to make new live-action movies that aren't remakes or re-dos or new adaptations of books (y'all seen THE MENU and BARBARIAN last year? Great stuff! Highly recommended.), but you still have Pixar. From March 2020 to March 2022? Four straight original animated movies: ONWARD, SOUL, LUCA, TURNING RED. After spin-off LIGHTYEAR, we're getting ELEMENTAL in two months, ELIO in spring 2024, and presumably many more on the horizon.

Oh, but ELEMENTAL looks "mid", you say? "A parody of Pixar"? Or whatever else is being mindlessly parroted at the moment? Whatever, I don't know what to say to that, but like it or not, a movie like ELEMENTAL is the rare original movie from Disney, a small island in a sea of remakes, Marvel, and Star Wars. Ditto ELIO, and again, whatever is in the works after that that isn't a sequel.

And of course, Walt Disney Animation Studios, who have all but abandoned literary adaptations outside of public domain fairy tales, keeps up with original stuff, too. After releasing no new movies in 2017, two back-to-back sequels from 2018-2019 and taking 2020 off due to COVID-19 complications, they hit us with RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON, ENCANTO, and STRANGE WORLD. Next up is WISH, also an original story, despite the weird way it was presented and reported on at D23. Whatever releases after that, I do not know, but FROZEN III and ZOOTOPIA 2 aren't the only things in development there. Plus, they have partnered with Nigerian upstart studio Kugali to make an original show for Disney+ called IWAJU.

Much like the reception ELEMENTAL is getting online, a movie that isn't even out yet, a lot of the recent WDAS output and what's next is just being written off... But it's all there, it's original, it's a mere morsel of something coming out of the company that seems to be all about them brands. I'm not blaming audiences specifically for, say, STRANGE WORLD's epic floppage this past holiday season, buuuuut- Those numbers are looked at, and they possibly bring about consequences.

I do get the worries, though. Under former CEO Bob Chapek, we saw Pixar's originals post-ONWARD all go straight to streaming while franchise entry LIGHTYEAR hit the big screen... and lost money. WDAS movies had a hard time, too. RAYA did a day-and-date thing with Disney+ before most of the vaccine rollout, ENCANTO dealt with Delta and Omicron before being a huge hit at home, STRANGE WORLD was straight up left for dead after testing very poorly.

With Bob Iger back in charge, Chapek's strong pivot to streaming is being reversed, as it's being realized that streaming is not the be-all end-all of the movie world. And sharp eyes knew it never would be, either, but you know how things go in capitalism: New thing shows up, abandon everything for the new thing! Disaster! Hey, that's how hand-drawn animated features prematurely got the boot circa 2001. Anyways- Yes, Iger rearranged a lot of things, and now the release strategies and marketing campaigns are back in the hands of the studios and creatives, and I'm pretty sure that there's an effort, a commitment to make ELEMENTAL the first Pixar box office success in four years. That's right, the last Pixar movie to make its money back at the box office was... TOY STORY 4... Back in 2019... And you wonder why a fifth one was greenlit?

I'd imagine Iger saw how Chapek and co mandated Pixar to send TURNING RED straight to streaming, and knew what to do from there. Ditto how, on the WDAS front, STRANGE WORLD was just straight up abandoned. TURNING RED probably would've made ENCANTO or BAD GUYS numbers at best, which wouldn't have been enough for its hefty budget (Pixar needs to stop overspending on these things), but I wonder what's in store for ELEMENTAL. Few animated movies post-2020 have passed the $100m threshold domestically, and I feel that is due to how many trips to the movies families can afford a year. (Say the line, Kyle: In 2014, statistics showed that the average American family goes to the movies four times a y-) It's opening amidst a ton of blockbusters and other animated family movies, including Disney's own LITTLE MERMAID, and the fifth INDIANA JONES movie. Maybe movies should just be more affordable? And theaters, better places to sit down and see a movie? I can see why many just don't go anymore, again, having worked at a theater for 7 1/2 years (and ready to move on to something better).

Or better yet, Pixar and WDAS need not spend more than $150m on the movies that they make. DreamWorks, Illumination, Sony, et al. put out dynamic-looking movies that are rewriting the CG animation book for way less, WDAS and Pixar should probably consider that. Leave the tech-flexing to things like that LION KING remake and prequel, let their animated movies experiment and have fun again. But even movies they don't seem to be flexing tech cost so much. Why, though? I know in California, these things are expensive, but DreamWorks is based out of California, too. I guess that Moonray software they themselves created and other solutions have gotten their movies to cost less than $100m each time out. Well, WDAS opened their Vancouver unit, so maybe they can up them to feature status? Like they did with the defunct Florida unit way back when? Split the effort with Vancouver, lower the cost? I dunno, just spit-balling here.

Basically, I don't want ELEMENTAL and WISH to come up short at the box office. Or any of the original stuff coming out, period. Again, WDAS, Pixar, and 20th Century/Searchlight are like Disney's last outlets for that kind of stuff on the movie end of things. 20th is fine and good, because in small-scale live-action, most of the time the studios know how to be smart with budgets. $150m budgets make the average WDAS and Pixar movie a risk, that they have to get on the stage and essentially perform like a Marvel movie just to break even! That's a lot to ask of an original animated movie! And not even the WDAS name nor the Pixar name can guarantee people will show up, both have had their fair share of flops. And now, judging by how ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA is doing, the Marvel name ain't a guarantee anymore either. Ditto Star Wars, remember how SOLO just sorta existed at the box office and lost a lot of money? TV and elsewhere is a different story, of course, there's plenty of original stuff to choose from there.

MOANA Live-Action is likely being made to fund the fun cool stuff, much in the same way sequels help fund originals. They... Pay the bills, shall we say.

In other words, I'm just indifferent. Whatever. Tell me more about the original stuff coming out, and you'll have my ear.

[trixree]

Hey i just visited your blog after binge reading several of your star wars fics and saw you've got POTS + assorted chronic medical fuckery. My spouse has the unholy trinity of POTS/EDS/MCAS (featuring guest artist Migraines) and boy do i feel for you if your combo is even a little bit similar. Crossing my fingers for you that the neurologist is a good fit! They tend to have their shit together when it comes to dysautonomia (and hopefully know a lot of the good med combos). I'll also put in a recommendation for electrolyte drinks -- i think it's not uncommon for ppl with POTS to have electrolyte/salt deficiencies, and i know it's been helpful for my spouse to chug 20-30 oz of propel or re-lyte water every day. Compression garments (esp. tights) have also been helpful for POTS, but not always great for digestion if they go over the stomach. Medical grade compression starts at 20-30 mmHg.

For appetite stuff, since I'm not sure what the underlying cause is for you idk if this will be helpful/applicable, but when it's hard to convince your body to eat I'm generally in favor of just going for anything that sounds appetizing to you even if it means eating ice cream 3x a day :P if it's a nausea thing, though, spouse may have some better recommendations, and I'd be happy to ask or send you their way. Best wishes and take care!

Per my last post, I'm catching up on old Asks, AO3 comments, and messages received during my hiatus! (Psst, go do my Fanfic Poll) This is so so so sweet of you, thank you SO MUCH! I rambled on quite a lot below the cut about my health journey the past year re: POTS and GI stuff, in case folks are interested in how I've managed. Disclaimer that I am NOT a medical professional and this is absolutely not medical advice, these are just my experiences and things that have worked well for me.

First off, what a DELICIOUSLY FAMILIAR COMBO of things! I was told at my last immunology appointment that I "almost certainly" (his words, not mine) have EDS (my mom has it, too, and my hips are constantly popping out of place) but 1.) I can't afford to go get diagnosed (see: unemployment, medical trauma) and 2.) one of my friends has been stalled for MONTHS trying to get a clinical geneticist to confirm her EDS diagnosis because, apparently, there is a great deal of resistance to testing folks for EDS right now given the increased visbility of EDS patients on TikTok. My partner is in med school and we've had really long conversations about the so-called "TikTok Triad" (POTS, EDS, and gastroparesis - which are all conditions that are acutally linked together with the clinical data we have) and how it's impacting both how physicians practice and the care that patients receive. This reddit thread is a good example of how this plays out, if you feel like braving reddit on this fine afternoon.

My neurologist is amazing and has done a lot to help me with my migraines... unfortunately the GI stuff is still kicking my ass. All of your recommendations are things that I've started doing over the last year to manage symptoms: my compression socks are my BESTEST FRIENDS and Drip Drop is my favorite electrolyte powder - they've got the best flavors imo and isn't as PAINFULLY SWEET as Liquid IV. I've also adopted a really high-salt diet. As far as appetite goes, my management strategy has been to smoke a lot of weed (I live somewhere where recreational use is thankfully legal, so it isn't difficult or unsafe to get ahold of it) but that's unfortunately expensive and can actually make persistent nausea and appetite loss WORSE over time (see canabis hyperemesis) so I've recently gone cold-turkey off of pot to see if I can manage the daily nausea and appetite loss with pharmaceuticals alone (namely phenergan). I'm seeing my GI in the next week and I'm going to lobby my ass off for a prescription appetite stimulant. I've lost a lot of weight in the last year (and I was already pretty small to begin with, so the weight loss has made my chronic pain a lot worse unfortunately) and I am a firm believer in following one's cravings in order to eat. I order a lot of take out and cycle through the same "safe" foods (usually some kind of cereal with soy milk, an Ensure protein shake if solids are an absolute no-go, and simple rice, potateos, and chicken works). The other night, my partner tried to entice me to eat an oreo ice cream sandwich during a bout of brutal nausea and I cried because I fucking love oreo ice cream but my body HATES having things inside of it <3 I've also found that excercise can SOMETIMES (not all of the time) help my appetite. I have a stationary bike and a basic set of weights at home. Stationary bike in particular is something I'd HUGELY recommend for anybody with POTS that deals with excercise intollerance. Sitting down to get my cardio is WAY BETTER than anything else I've tried in terms of how badly my symptoms get triggered. I'm also currently medicated for my POTS (I take ivabradine and it's made a big difference for my quality of life on the whole, especially with regards to the fatigue that having a constantly elevated heartrate will generate.)

I do appear to have some sort of motility problem (most likely IBS-C) and I'm taking medication for it that has HELPED, but not nearly enough. I poop more than once every twelve days now, which is awesome, but I'm still constantly nauseous more often than not (Zofran, Dramamine, and Phenergen are my bestest friends) and my appetite is nowhere to be found. Hopefully I can get my hands on some appetite stimulant. As for the nausea, I've been informed by my electro cardiologist that many, many POTS patients report diminished appetites and chronic, debilitating nausea, but that "the mechanism relating the two is unexplored and largely unknown." So basically he said, "that sounds ROUGH buddy. Good luck though!"

(Hence me sharing my strategies cause I know, colloquially, that lots of us are dealing with this.)

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

Pokemon Emerald Ralts Only Part 4: Fish and Magnets

So this one took a lot longer than I had expected it would and was a lot harder. Ultimately I'm a rather methodical player so sometimes when I have to reset I'll just jump back in and see whether it was just bad luck, or whether there's a different strategy I could be using, instead of just resigning myself to having to grind a little more. I really want to avoid just grinding and overleveling whenever possible, in part because I want to create strategies that are reasonably quick to execute and reproducible. But I'm not perfect, so expect the reset count to climb pretty high this update.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

At least the start isn't too bad. We're still in Dewford, so make sure to deliver the letter to Steven, which just involves some stumbling around in the dark. Thankfully Flash feels really optional in Generation III.

As an aside, a truly baffling number of TMs we get early on that Ralts just simply cannot use. It's a bit depressing but at minimum its a bit of extra cash in our pocket. There's a good reason we might want to have this extra cash on hand, but it won't come up for a while so I won't bring it up.

Moving on to Slateport, I elect not to fight too many additional trainers yet. We're reasonably overleveled now and I am starting to form a gameplan for Watson which I think will allow us to beat him at a lower level than you might think! We do the fights that get us the Soda Pop though, since its free healing items. After that we go to deliver the Devon Goods.

It's here we get our first actually usable Ralts TM: Thief. Thief is a 40 base power Dark-type move that also steals our opponent's item. It might be one of the most underutilized moves in a challenge run, but I don't want to teach it just yet. We only get one of these TMs, so I want to make sure we use it at the right time. So now we go upstairs to fight the Aqua Grunts.

Right. They start to have Carvanha here. Let's just quickly teach Thief since Carvanha are pretty frail and see how well it does.

Well that's not good, since it also triggers Rough Skin, but I wouldn't say its that poor damage. We even get to Trace Rough Skin for this fight, and besides, its Carvanha. This is a Pokemon literally no one remembers. You probably couldn't tell me what the Pokemon even does. It's base stats? You don't know them.

If you've caught onto this being a set-up for an ironic joke, how dare you.

Yeah so in my defense, I've literally never used Carvanha ever. It comes smack in the midgame of RSE and its showing in these games is pretty pathetic. I didn't know it had Bite at Level 1, and this changed Carvanha from incredibly annoying into a legitimate roadblock.

Let's discuss our options here: Option 1, we level up until we learn Calm Mind, and then we use Calm Mind and Thief to defeat the Carvanha. The problem with this strategy is that we definitely are going to need to grind on wild Pokemon in order to get the bulk we need to get past just this one Carvanha. Put a pin in that.

Option 2 is that we drain all of our PP and use Struggle. It's not pretty and takes a buttload of time but it does give us an unresisted damage dealing option. Route 110 even has some helpful Poochyena for us :)

Option 3 is...something I'm not sure many people remember about Pokemon Emerald, which is that Pokemon Emerald has Move Tutors scattered about. Most of the moves that don't require you to go to the Battle Frontier are pretty bad, but the tutor in Slateport has...

Swagger might seem like an odd choice for a strategy, but if we take a minute to look at Carvanha's stats:

Carvanha's sky high Attack stat and its absolutely ridiculously paper thin bulk make it a very prime Swagger target. Maybe if we're lucky we can even OHKO it. But Swagger by its nature is inconsistent: Swagger can miss, Confusion only has a 50% chance to work, and Carvanha does have a physical move (albeit: its Rage) to hit us with. We can use Double Team to try and shore up a bit of the luck, but it's a strategy that's prone to getting resets.

Reset Count: 9

Let's get the Thief reset out of the way quickly. It's not pretty, Carvanha pretty easily cleans our clock.

Next up is the Swagger strat and you might notice something: this Carvanha is a lower level. This is because this part of the game has two mandatory fights that come simultaneously with no time to heal in-between. We got past the first fight and the first Carvanha, easily OHKOd the Zubat with Confusion, and then lost to the second Carvanha. The Swagger strat has a lot of promise though.

One self-inflicted Confusion hit is enough to deal an incredible amount of damage to the Carvanha. I want you to keep this damage range in mind for later when I get past this.

Reset Count: 10

Next up is Struggle, and...

This is definitely not the play. Struggle at Level 20 is only a 2HKO to the Carvanha, and it triggers Rough Skin. If we could heal in-between the fights, this would maybe be an okay solution. But we likely won't OHKO the Zubat either, so this is a strategy that would require grinding.

Reset Count: 11

With these three on the table, I make the choice to go with a moveset of Confusion / Swagger / Double Team / Teleport.

Reset Count: 13

Ultimately its a very luck-based strategy. We take a couple of resets, but it doesn't take us that long until we push through and win the fight.

Now I have to come clean. I said there were three options, but that was only due to the fact that I hypertunneled on a reasoning mistake. I thought that these strategies were mutually exclusive. The best way to get this past, imo, is with a moveset of Confusion / Swagger / Double Team / Thief. If you remember when we tried Thief, it was a 5HKO unboosted, but the damage it did was more than enough to finish off a Carvanha that had hit itself in Confusion. Ultimately, using Thief to finish off weakened Carvanha could have prevented all of these resets had I considered it early on. But I only realized after I started looking through my screenshots again. That's an actual mistake I made in routing.

Getting past this fight opens up Route 110 to explore, and we have the next Rival battle, right? We even pick up Calm Mind at Level 21, which is an extremely powerful boosting move that we'll make a ton of use out of.

So I do win the fight, but I accidentally misjudged its trigger zone and went in without saving. That would have been pretty embarassing, just throwing more mistakes after each other. :V Calm Mind is just very good and the entire reason we do well.

Up the route however is two trainers who attempt to try and double battle you if you go to take the hidden Revive. One of them is the Pokemaniac who has a Lombre and a Nuzleaf, and unfortunately, while I do beat the Nuzleaf thanks to Swagger, I get paralyzed from Nature Power. I realized I was out of Paralyze Heals and I didn't want to use my Cheri Berries for that purpose since they're valuable as held items, so I go to make my way back to the Pokemon Center in Slateport. At this point I've replaced Teleport with Calm Mind, since I leveled up on the first Carvanha and needed Double Team for the second. So what happens?

I get stopped by a trainer that I had previously avoided, and my Ralts was both weakened and paralyzed, so the Aron really easily KOs it.

Reset Count: 14

This is a phenomenon I call "post-bottleneck play", where you get past a really tough obstacle and you're feeling good and off the hook, and as a result your play gets really sloppy. Big throwing good money after bad money here. We avoid making the same mistake in the future and arrive in Mauville City.

At this point I begin to think about what I want to do about Watson.

I was the most concerned about his Magneton, which is a Pokemon that has the potential to hard stonewall runs. It's bulky, incredibly strong, and loves to status you with Thunder Wave. It's one of those Speed control AI quirks, so while it's very predictable, it also makes Magneton extremely annoying.

I'm pretty confident that Confusion isn't a move that's going to be cutting it, so I decide to take the extra EXP in Watson's Gym and learn Psychic, replacing Double Team. This move has honestly really lived past its usefulness, and its extra bad against Watson since all of his Pokemon know Shock Wave.

The plan is simple. I'm going to set-up with Calm Mind, preferably once, and use Psychic to OHKO the Voltorb and the Electrike. The Magneton will likely be a 2HKO, and since it almost always uses Thunder Wave Turn 1, I can equip a Cheri Berry to recover from paralysis and get by scott free. Then I will hopefully also 2HKO the Manectric before it KOes me.

I run into a problem pretty quickly though.

Voltorb is actually faster than me at this level, so it can do a lot of damage with Spark and Shock Wave.

Reset Count: 15

An additional really frustrating complication is that it can damage me with Spark or Shock Wave, and then Turn 2 just decide to use Self-Destruct to KO Ralts. Out of all the Pokemon in the world I would ever expect to give me trouble, Voltorb was not it.

Reset Count: 16

I decide to do a little bit of optional trainer battles to the East to get up to Level 28 and try again. At this point it's a good time to bring up how the damage formula works briefly. Higher level Pokemon do more damage, but because of rounding errors thanks to Pokemon always truncating the decimal, the only levels you notice that level based damage boost are ones ending in 0, 3, 5, and 8, so when you're training to get past a powerful fight, these are the levels you want to aim for by default.

This time thanks to a lucky critical hit on the Magneton, we're able to get all the way to the Manectric, but it just KOes us with Quick Attack since we're at low HP.

Reset Count: 17

Unfortunately, as you can see from this earlier attempt, the Voltorb is just brutal. We need to set-up on it, but that allows it to do a ton of damage, and we're not getting past this fight on 25 HP. This is also ignoring that Static can paralyze you and eat your Cheri Berry, which is almost always another reset point.

With this in mind, it's time to train up to Level 30. If I was evolving my Ralts this playthrough, Gardevoir would easily handle this gym. Alas.

Also if you were worried about the lack of sloppy play, don't worry, we take a reset on Cycling Road to some really bad paralysis luck. 8)

Reset Count: 18

After getting to Level 30, we return to Watson. At this point I had high hopes because of Calm Mind, I was sure that the extra grinding would allow us to succeed.

So the game responds by handing me not one, but two resets caused by critical hit Sparks, which is really aggrevating. These type of resets suck because they don't really give you much information, they're just the game trolling you.

Reset Count: 20

This reset highlights what may be the actual most frustrating part of this fight though. If the Voltorb decides to start with Selfdestruct, and you try to use Calm Mind, Selfdestruct ends the turn after its used, and you lose your Calm Mind. It's really, really frustrating.

Reset Count: 21

Sometimes you get past the Voltorb with so little HP you know the fight can't be won anyways. This was a fight where I attempted a different strategy of using Psychic instead of trying to set-up on the Voltorb, and at Level 30, Psychic does not even OHKO. It's tragic.

Reset Count: 22

This was the farthest I got with Level 30: I found out that at +1, Psychic is not a 2HKO against the Magneton, and I'm not exactly finding the wiggle room for a second Calm Mind. It's time to take a minute and re-strategize, because this isn't working.

Reset Count: 23

No this strategy won't include you Imprison! Begone from my movepool!

Let's take a moment to actually learn what Voltorb's Speed stat is, shamelessly stolen from a Scott's Thoughts video (although this data exists elsewhere). 49 Speed would be a benchmark most reasonable Pokemon could easily hit with a Speed boosting nature, but Ralts is not most reasonable Pokemon. At level 30, we have 45 Speed, so we're going to need at least 2 levels I think to outspeed the Voltorb, and that's if we get a bit lucky with our Speed growth.

While there is maybe some discussion to be had about checking if the Voltorb is a roll with Psychic at Level 30, the simple matter is that Voltorb outspeeding us just introduces too much volatility. It can paralyze us with Spark or use Self-Destruct and do ridiculous amounts of damage, or it can even just crit us and do enough damage we won't have the HP to make it through the fight.

After absorbing the souls of every available trainer to this point, we hit level 32 and have 49 Speed. It's that blessed Slow growth rate coming back to haunt us yet again :D

We're going to need to grind up an additional level, a speed tie might work but I really want the damage rounding threshold that Level 33 provides just to make absolutely sure we don't miss OHKOing the Voltorb. Since we beat the Winstrate Family, we have access to the Macho Brace, so it's time to start thinking a little bit about of EVs.

....or well, it would be. But as a result of this project I've learned that tumblr posts have an image limit! So next time!

[crystalelemental]

Some Extreme Battle clears against Ethan, without SS Kris, for those looking for solutions.

General Pool Only Hope you've got EX Leaf and especially EX Kris. Ethan's fight is hindered significantly once Sun is removed. Sadly, Kanto and Johto have exactly two Rain setters to their name, in SS Kris and Eevee Lyra, with a flat zero Sandstorm or Hail setters. Sure would've been nice if they could've given Lorelei something about setting Hail. Maybe give her some utility?

So yeah, we need to look off-region, and May's your best bet. Hits a lot of theme skills with Kris, sets up Rain just fine, doesn't even need to survive past setting rain one time. I had Leaf take first sync, and Kris' follow-up exploded everything to death just fine. I would be willing to guess that EX Kris without EX Leaf can do similarly, and may be able to get a denial off Mega Kick against one of the sides to avoid the quad queue. That said, without Sun, you'll handle sync just fine. It's not that scary, so long as Leaf has healed up. The strategy is really just remove Sun with Rain, set up Kris' X Atks and Trainer Move once, kick, Trainer Move again, Kick, you should easily reach max crit. Leaf's sync tops off Atk/Spd, double buffs, and you're in the clear.

Wrong Suicune If you got Eusine back in...June? Was it June? It feels longer ago. Anyway. Eusine's a good response to this fight, provided you again just remove Sun with Rain. His Buddy move trucks sides, and you only need to worry about the Trap effect on Ethan. For this one, I found out that Swim Misty's +2 to both defenses can potentially keep May alive a lot longer, but she needs to Potion her after Swift. The next AoE isn't for a long time, and Eusine can potentially end the match by then. EX isn't strictly necessary on anyone. I had it on Eusine, but his damage to the sides on sync isn't mandatory at all.

Sun Superiority Let's say, for some reason, you only got SS Morty back in the Johto VA. Good news: he can win this fight with Silver and Karen. The main focus here is that Karen's Snarl can double debuff special attack, and this is required to tank sync well enough to live. MPRs on Trainer Move and Potion are also encouraged. Morty needs EX, and ideally you packed Team Gimme Five, to cap off Silver's attack. Silver's DPS is fairly poor, but his sync under Sun is explosive. The main fear is Heat Wave post-sync. Silver will not be able to handle that, barring some MPR Potion luck from Morty (I did not get lucky). Silver has some potential cheese, thanks to the +2 evasion on his own trainer move, which let him dodge as you can see here. This is...a pretty scary fight, to be frank. It's definitely not a clean win. But it's possible if Morty's all you've got.

Whale Powers Activate If you, like me, are one of the fifteen people worldwide who pulled on the Eevee Day scout, Eevee Lyra is a reasonable response to this fight. You desperately want special defense support though, because you'll be eating two AoE shots under Sun. Considering Lyra also needs crit, this pretty much leaves SC Jasmine as a requirement. Thankfully, she's an excellent tank for the fight. Because I have brain problems, I went with Winter Jasmine, thinking hey, let's roll with the Psychic Terrain set, and see if she can help set up special defense drops for Lyra while flinch-locking. It works, but realistically the flinch alone is sufficient. Base Whitney could've done this. I didn't have to go this expensive.

The main thing to note is that SC Jasmine will never take sync. So no EX are required. Lyra will want 2/5 for the ability to actually hit a target consistently (Muddy Water 85 accuracy bad), but otherwise is fine. Your first sync is as soon as it's acquired, while the second sync should be delayed until after Ethan's. That way, you disrupt the sun setting right away. From there, the match is fairly easy.

[httpiastri]

That Arthur fluff was wonderful and absolutely perfect, thank you so much! Sometime even the best lucky charm just doesn't work out. And The ending was really cute haha! Let's hope for a better weekend in Silverstone! Are you gonna be watching the race? What are the main drivers your rooting for, especially in f2? :)

-✨

thank you sweetheart!!! you’re so cute, i’m glad you liked it 🫶🫶🫶 yes, let’s hope for good races this weekend! unfortunately i’m going on a boat trip tomorrow with my cousin so i’ll miss pretty much everything tomorrow… and on sunday, we’re doing something else, but thankfully it’s about 11-15 so i might actually not miss anything lmao! and on saturday i’ll be free to sit by the tv all day 😚

i think that this weekend i’ll be rooting mainly for ollie !! i think he deserves to win his home race. i hope he gets some good qualifying laps in and that prema’s strategy is good, he was so unlucky last weekend and still got points from working hard so i think that if tomorrow goes well then he can go far!! 🥰 other than him i’m rooting for arthur, he deserves a good weekend too, and it would also be nice to see vesti gain some points for the championship. and i’ve been in a very clement mood these last few days (plus his interview on the f2 website 🥺) so i would love to see him get some points too!!

what about you? are you going to be watching? who are you rooting for? <3