#the delta pokemon have the best writing in the game

[stoutlandchild]

I’m trying so hard to contain my hatred of the writing of Pokemon Insurgence but it is Very Hard.

(And to some extent the gameplay but that’s mostly cause the gameplay feels strangely unbalanced...dont know enough about games to talk about that though)

[pokemon-card-of-the-day]

If you dont mind the ask, what are some of your favorite pokemon cards by moveset, design, and/or art?

Ooh, I like this ask, I think I'm going to dig in and make this my post for the day and put some work into this.

Electrode was the coolest Pokemon in the first generation because blowing up to what would become 2 of any Energy let some cool strats with otherwise slow Pokemon work. It's a shame that it was so weak to Energy Removal, but at least Lass existed to help.

Kabuto from Neo Discovery goes in the art category. Was the first of the clay Pokemon by Yuka Morii that I ever got, and those cards are adorable. I'm glad there was a series of these throughout the years.

Town Volunteers was one of the first Supporters, which was a very positive change to the game, but was also used for art in the Lumiose Museum in XY. I love that they used old cards in that.

This was probably the first deck I used that was really, really good, as I actually got all the cards together for a functional version of it. I couldn't go to many events for various reasons but I'm fond of it anyway.

Flygon here had a lot going for it. It was one of the Delta Species, which was a very cool concept and one I wish they'd go fully back to someday. Tera does some of that but misses out on the Weakness diversity within a type thing, which I know they're actively trying to avoid now. It also let you play with a variety of Delta Species at once with that Poke-Power, so it was fun to mess around with.

My favorite Pokemon may have never been good in the games (does ADV ZU count as good? Probably not) but got one of the best cards of all time. Any deck could use this as 2 of any color of Energy, though you had to return an Energy back to your hand so it worked best alongside things like Blastoise ex or Meganium ex. Those decks could just work with any Pokemon that needed 2 or fewer off-type Energy, so that translated to the vast majority of Pokemon in the game. It was still useful in decks without that to an extent. Oh, and it was also a starter Pokemon for basically any deck running a lot of Delta Species Pokemon, even if it was just the Basic versions to evolve into something else. Incredible card.

Crystal Beach isn't here for design or what it does, it's for story reasons. One person that could possibly read this will know what I'm talking about here.

I didn't get to play a ton in the DP era but I do remember this being silly. 90 for no Energy was such a fun concept, and it was actually pretty good at the time.

The attack is called Everyone Explode Now. What's not to like?

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I think I should stop here for now, got out of hand a bit. I think I'll put out a second edition of this tomorrow evening with later cards since I rarely write anything after therapy anyway and that'll be a fun easy thing. Can go back to normal posts Wednesday. Thanks for the ask here, that was fun to do!

[aquaticfossil]

At first I thought I’d be ostracized for my choice then through looking at the notes I realized it will not be that bad, that being said I chose Cynthia and Volo immediately. I like them don’t get me wrong but I could enjoy everything without them. Cynthia was strong when I was kid but all in all my issue was not knowing counters to spiritomb, and story wise I feel like a lot of the story can be done without her, she usually arrive after you’ve done something important and either says something cryptic or gives you an item. Volo I can definitely live without like he’s sketchy from the start and definitely not from that time period either but he’s just some guy from a certain clan of people that just happens to have some relation to Cynthia as like an ancestor. He got obsessed with god summoned the devil to see god and opened a hole in reality, like they could have made anyone’s ancestor do that, there’s plenty of outliers in the pokemon world.

Unova-

Unova is and has been my favorite region since release and my favorite pokemon are all from there.

Oras-

Oras fleshed out the evil teams more, gave us more mega lore and pokemon and fit the delta episode in perfectly.

TCG-

I’m an art obsessed nerd so I could never get rid of the cards they have some of the most interesting and beautiful pieces even now.

Fairy type-

The fairy typing changed the landscape of the game giving some previously easily forgotten Pokemon the ability to shine and bring a better balance to dragon than just ice because it’s a reptile or only a dragon can beat a dragon, fairy tales have proven that you usually need fae intervention. I like this as someone who loves dragon pokemon.

Pokespe-

Pokespe has some of the best writing and art in the series, it gives a world closer to the creators ideas as well as managing to tie in the game plots with alternative plots to bring the world alive.

Sorry this was long, I’m don’t get to rant or talk about Pokemon in my offline life.

okay go

[championkoma]

I am once again back on my pokemon bullshit.

Over the past 10 years or so, my love for pokemon has been fading with each new release. Starting with Sun and Moon, I began to feel like pokemon had become too kid friendly for me, as I just graduated high school and was truly beginning my adult life. I enjoyed the story of Sun and Moon but did not enjoy the games mechanics in the totems rather than gyms and what not and did not enjoy the region itself so much. After that, ultra Sun and moon released and I bought it but never even beat it until this year because I just couldn’t get into it. I enjoyed the Lets Go games but wish there was more battling involved so I could see my boy mega blastoise more in Kanto. I was quite excited for Pokemon Sword and Shield but once I began playing I quickly grew bored of it, can’t really place any reason why but it just didn’t stick. I had fun with Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl but they’re nothing to write home about. Then legends arceus released and I was super hyped for it, and now I still have not finished it. I think it’s the best idea the pokemon company has had in years but I can only play for about 30 minutes before getting bored. Now with Scarlet and Violet, I was not hyped in the slightest but bought scarlet anyways and actually ended up loving the story but thought it was an ugly game, the first dlc was fun and I looked forward to the second but once it came out, I quickly gave up once encountering the trials.

Overall, I figured I’ve just outgrown Pokemon but once IOS allowed emulators, I decided to get all the older games again and quickly felt the nostalgia and love for the series in full again.

The Delta Emulator for GB/GBA/DS.

I downloaded delta first, as it was the emulator I was most familiar with. I got all the GB and GBA games first but quickly wanted to try SoulSilver for DS again. At this point I’m not too far but still open it up and grind whenever I have time.

ArcEmu for Apple Watch

I then learned of ArcEmu that allows you to play Gb/GBA games on an Apple Watch. I love this idea and downloaded FireRed for it but don’t really use it for anything, but enjoy knowing that I have it with me if I ever leave my phone.

Folium

An emulator for 3DS games has been fun to tinker with but doesn’t run the best on my iPhone 13 mini. Weirdly, Pokemon Omega Ruby seems to run better than Pokemon X.

Overall, I just like to tinker with the emulators on iOS and prefer the DS and 3ds games on emulators, for some reason GB and GBA feels wrong on phones.

Pokémon Go

I have been a day 1 pokemon Go rural player, over the years I have mostly just used it for transferring shiny pokemon to my main switch games. At this point I’m pretty much done with the game as they continue to make the game a pain for rural players who don’t want to spend money. I have transferred all of my shinies to home and most of the pokemon but will still check the game whenever I’m in new areas and whatnot.

Pokemon TCG Pocket

I started playing the new Pokemon TCG Pocket game and im liking it so far. I’ve never been much of a Pokemon TCG player, just a collector and this game scratches the itch for a casual collector like me who just likes to buy a booster pack occasionally here and there. I pulled a full art Mewtwo card which was cool.

Pokémon Sapphire/GameBoy Micro

About 2 years ago, I bought a GameBoy Advanced and a couple of Pokemon Repro carts. Eventually I pulled the trigger on a legitimate copy of Pokemon Sapphire. I work full time and do full time college so I don’t have much time to actually play. Eventually I decided to get a GameBoy micro, and decided to go for a cheaper and more beat up so that I can take it with me everywhere and not feel bad if it gets beat up.

I have loved having a GameBoy micro with me. I still don’t get to play as much as I’d like but it makes lunch breaks more fun at work and something about playing on actual hardware feels so much better.

Pokemon and the impact it has had on me

I have been a lifelong Pokemon fan, many of my earliest memories include Pokemon. I watched Pokemon the first movie probably over 100 times. I collected and traded Pokemon cards on the playground with many of my classmates. I received Pokemon firered as my first Pokemon game when I was 10, around the time Pokemon platinum was released and put hundreds of hours into it. Once, Pokemon X and Y released I made it my goal to complete the pokedex and was successful. I probably put 300-500 hours per game back in the day and now usually don’t even spend 100 hours on the modern games. Maybe I’m just a grumpy old fan but to me it feels like modern Pokemon is missing the heart that old Pokemon had.

Anyways, just figured I’d make a post for the hell of it and just chat about Pokémon.

[i-write-boop-spoops]

what pokemon games have you played? (Emerald and Platinum are best imo.)

Yall better buckle up, this is basically the history of me and Pokemon istg

In order, here are the games I’ve played: Platinum, X, Alpha Sapphire, Sun, Let’s Go Eevee, Shield and Brilliant Diamond.

As you can see, I totally skipped the GB/GBA generation, even if we did have an advance spinning about at home. I was probably a bit too young then for Pokemon anyways, so the DS was my first proper taste of Pokemon. I spent a lot of time in Platinum, even if my brother completed the story for me. Much nostalgia.

Noticeably, I haven’t played any Gen 2 (original or remakes) or Gen 5, because I was a dumb kid and never got them/borrowed my brother’s copies of them. I am highkey considering playing them someday though, since they’re both highly regarded.

How do I write for Silver or N since I haven’t played their games? I’ve absorbed a lot of N through other people, breakdowns, and his anime appearances, and for Silver, I basically write him as Felix from fire emblem because they are THE SAME GUY basically and his generations episode is so good.

Why do I write for them? 12 y/o me stumbled on fanart and fanfic of them on Deviantart and I’ve never been the same.

X was what really got me into Pokemon. I remember giving money to my older cousin to buy me a 2DS and X with an employee discount at the shop he worked at. I loved it so much! Even if my team was shit, I had such a good time. I had such a huge crush on Calem, but obviously my tastes have matured and I’m a full on Sycamore stan now.

I wanna say I got Alpha Sapphire in 2015, and then I think I got stuck in Meteor Falls looking for the Dreamboat during the delta episode, and I didn’t finish it until either 2018/2019, and it was so good that I immediately replayed it. Steven might be my favourite Pokemon character, I swear it was love at first sight. Ugh, I wanna play it again, and I wanna give Steven a kiss.

SU/MO were the first Pokemon games I was actively hyped for. I watched every trailer, and I was big into a lot of Poketubers at the time (specifically Birdkeeper Toby). I got Sun for Christmas 2016, and played it for an hour and didn’t pick it up until 2019.

Some context is, my eyesight is extremely bad, reading small font is super hard for me and doing it for a long time really hurts. It’s a progressive condition, so I was able to fairly easily play Pokemon on the DS/3DS when I was a kid, but by that time, my sight could not handle Sun’s tiny text.

When I got my switch I got it with Let’s go Eeevee, and it was just wholesome and fun. I did not like the Go-style catching mechanic BUT my Eeevee was a dote and it was nice to see where it all started. Also I could play it on the TV, with the switch’s zoom if I needed, so it was much nicer on my peepers

Luckily, in 2019, I got my hands on a 3DS XL and with a 4x magnifying glass, I finally was able to play Sun and I loved it. First off, it has Togedemaru, the best Pokémon, and secondly the region is so FUCKING GORGEOUS! And I’m a 2015 tumblr bitch, I love galaxy/space shit (another reason why I love ORAS actually). And the characters were just great (stan Lillie for clear skin) and obviously we got big bug daddy Guzma who I owe most of my notes too lol

So yeah I got Shield at the end of that year, loved it (specifically Leon, I am so horny for that man oml). I didn’t care about the national dex really, but yeah that game has some story problems, and the areas aren’t super flushed out. I love the Isle of Armour and the Crown tundra though. I will also protect all the chatacters with my life.

Most recently I played Brilliant Diamond, and by most recently I mean literally today. I love revisiting Sinnoh but this game… is a choice…

Anyways anon, thank you for this question, sorry for all this info lol.

[byakuyasdarling]

Ah yes, Pokémon rivals; my favourite topic

Warning: this list is massively biased. I (kinda jokingly) rag on every ‘Awful’ tier rival, so if you don’t want to here that, feel free to skip that explanation. I am pretty harsh with Marnie, I know a lot of people like her, so if you do like her PLEASE don’t read her section because I do not want to upset anyone. 

Also, I do ramble a bit how I like SWSH but they are my personal least favourite games (which is a hot take, I know), so if that would upset you please skip. Take care of yourselves <33

I created the politically correct ranking of Pokémon rivals (/j)

Anyway, epic explanation under the cut:

*if N was on this list he would fall under “Amazing”. Breath-taking story, breath-taking development, great theme songs, awesome character, fantastic team.

Why Blue is in S rank (very long explanation compared to the rest)

You cannot tell me Blue (or Green, or Gary, whatever you want to call the main Kanto rival) isn’t THE BEST RIVAL EVER. They got it SO RIGHT. He inspires hatred, AND sympathy. Literally, his grandad, the only living relative aside from his sister we even know about, loves you (the player) more than him and it’s kind of sad. 

Blue is great, he has a crappy pronunciation of ‘Bonjour’ (see Pokémon Masters), he says ‘smell ya later!’ he has class, swag, and is by no doubt the most challenging rival character. He is the only rival I never swept on a normal run. He is always demeaning you; he is always one step ahead all the way up until the champion battle where you finally beat him. AND HIS CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT OMG.

He still is arrogant and prideful, but respects people and wants to guide people to be better at Pokémon battling and thrives when he sees others succeeding - he doesn’t mind being ‘a former champion’. HECK HE’S SO COOL AND AMAZING. 

Also he has the best champion theme and encounter theme ever. Yes, he was a previous F/O so I am super biased; but so were 3 others on this list. 

Silver and Gladion

These two were my F/Os when I was much younger (around 12). They are great rivals with great development and story arcs. Plus, they have bopper encounter themes and battle themes. Gladion was my real introduction to the oc x canon community and inspired me to take drawing on as a hobby (as well as Lillie but I did not end up drawing her as much). 

Brendan, Cheren, Hugh, and Barry

When I was 10 playing Omega Ruby, I liked Brendan a lot (so... another past F/O... he’s the final one though). I dunno, he genuinely had a good friendship with that extra spice of rivalry with our character, May. I do not like friendly rivals (if my listing wasn’t obvious), but Brendan did it right. There was a lot of touching scenes with him and May *cough*cough* Delta Chapter *cough*cough* which really made me connect with him when I was 10. Now, Brendan and May are interchangeable depending on which one of them you pick to play as, so why have I ranked Bredan far above May? Better encounter and battle theme (yes, they have different instrumentation) and he gets the childhood crush pass.

Cheren is cool, I just really like his character and his attempts to create a good strategy. He is really dedicated to what he loves and becomes a gym leader (like BLUE DID. Blue has it all, really). Plus, glasses are cute :) (he is the same age as me, I can legally say that even though that was an obvious nod to Byakuya but you never know what people will take out of context). 

Hugh is cool becomes he somewhat feels like an asshole rival, but at the same time, has a really soft side. Like, his whole motivation to be a good trainer is to save his sister’s Purrloin that was stolen by Team Plasma. He is a hero y’all. Also GREAT encounter and battle theme; huge thumbs up. 

Barry! My man! Overall, cool rival with a great team. He is the second hardest rival to me (but Blue is harder than him by a landslide still). He is really funny in both the games and the anime and despite being a bit more friendly, he still sparks a lot of rivalry with you. Plus, his dad is battle frontier brain Palmer! How awesome! He was also my first rival, so that’s something special to me too. 

Average Tier

I like Hau as a character, he feels like a genuine friend and how he develops with the main character and Lillie is really wholesome. It’s just - I dislike him as a rival, a lot. Easy fights, not the best encounter theme... just kind of there. I get why people consider Gladion as ‘the true rival’ of S and M because he really is. Hau is also a rival that chooses the starter WEAK to your starter like the gen 6 rivals (who I hate with my entire being). 

Wally had a bad-ass final battle theme song and moment. That’s literally the only reason he makes the average tier. If this was a ranking disregarding ORAS he is easily down in the ‘Awful’ tier. 

I like Pokémon Sword and Shield... except I just don’t like them as much as every other game (yes. I did play Pokémon Yellow and enjoyed it more, thank you). I know you all HATE that, but that is just my opinion - I think I have earned the right to say that after my almost 12 years of playing these games and being a VGC player for a few years. It has good characters and some cool Pokémon and yeah... gameplay? Lacklustre. I really do not know what went wrong outside of story. Somehow the competitive battle scene is not the fun it used to be. Dynamax bugs me, the lack of megas bugs me, the dex cut REALLY bugs me. I know I am not the only one who thought this game lacked the charm other Pokemon games have. Graphically though, it’s very nice for the most part.

I have gone way off-topic, but anyway, yeah. SWSH rivals make average because I like their characters (especially Hop’s development). Outside of that, not the best rivals.

May is cool for a lot of the reasons I discussed with Brendan.

Lacking Tier

I like Bianca’s whole deal with her dad and how Elesa has a nice moment to shine too - and that’s it. I know the whole theme of her team is friendship but I die inside every time I watch a Chandelure uses RETURN. It was cool she returned in BW2 I guess? I like how her battle theme matches her personality, but it isn’t anything to write home about. 

I like Calem a bit more than Serena but I do not want to pull another Brendan and May (even though I had some good reason to do that) and I’m going to put them here. Bad teams and not memorable in the slightest, Calem and Serena belong in this tier. 

Awful Tier

X and Y rivals amirite??? They just suck. They are annoying and they suck. They have 3 Pokémon in all final fights, really? At least Shauna is likeable in the anime. 

I hate Trace. But, he has one funny memory I have with my dad that makes him slightly better. We both named him ‘Blue’ since Blue is the actual Kanto rival, but then Blue showed up in LGPE... And then the two ‘Blues’ talked to each other and it was mildly amusing at the time. Anyway, he didn’t deserve Blue’s champion theme (which is even used for Blue in later games outside of his champion battle (BW2), THAT IS NOT TRACE’S THEME. Anyway, he is the gross friendly rival that attempted to fulfil the best rival’s shoes. Sorry Trace, bad luck my dude. 

I just never attached to Marnie I suppose, but I can understand that she is important to those who are invested in her. I am about to fully rag on Marnie, so please skip if that makes you upset. 

 I am going to hurt a lot of people when I said I never liked Marnie. She was always just... like why do people like her so much?? I feel like most people like her because she is ‘funny haha goth gf’ which, fair I suppose. I just think she is super lacking as a rival, she makes no real impression as an actual character, and I think if you removed her from the game it wouldn’t make a difference. Don’t want to be that guy, but I AM that guy right now. I suppose she has a cute design?? and that’s it. Again, I am really biased when it comes to SWSH and rivals, so I suppose she really got the short end of the stick with me.

[flyswhumpcenter]

Bad Things Happen Bingo! The event where you send me requests according to this marvelous card! (Red cross is the completed prompt, character headshots are prompts I’ve already filled. Green deltas are for requested prompts.)

Choo choo, the Sickfic Express has just arrived in Galar, straight from Oreburgh City! 

First fic of 2020 is a sickfic oneshot. How rivetting. I've very recently beaten Pokémon Sword and loved it! I found myself really loving the characters, what they are and what they've already become in my mind, so I couldn't help myself but type what I know best... A sickfic. Also, this fandom needs more of this stuff, so here. I'm providing. Is this story OOC? Chances they are. Was it absolutely a blast to write? You bet. I'm probably gonna look back on it later down the lane and be uncomfortable with how I depicted the characters; but you do need to discover the characters first, and what better opportunity for that than a little sickfic with some angst and pre-rel dramatic tension? Anyway, I hope you'll like this lil' thing I busted out in literally a couple hours. I forgot how fun it was to write without worrying yourself over continuity or already established elements like in Earth Never Stops... Btw, this fic was originally requested to me as a FE3H fill for Hubert, so I decided I'd most likely use another square on my card for him. Sorry Nonnie for this, my inspiration got the best of me yet again! 

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Candles in the Rain

Summary: Is feverishly staggering through the damp streets of Hammerlocke under the rain with very little hope to feel warmth again and even less sense of direction a fitting end for a former Champion now that he's been defeated once? Scratch that: he doesn't have the time or brain power remaining to process such a question. Or: Leon witnesses a miracle in the form of a little dog and a childhood friend.

Fandom: Pokémon Sword and Shield (post-canon/game: beware for spoilers) Relationships: Pre-relationship Leon/Sonia

Wordcount: 3.1K words

Event hosted by @badthingshappenbingo​

AO3 version available here.

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The streets of Hammerlocke are covered by a thick layer of rainwater, typical early winter in Galar. Nobody dares going against the terrible weather, which isn’t unlike the flooding that almost ate Kabu’s region of origin, or rather how he once described it based on bedtime stories, a couple thousand years ago. Honestly, after what Galar just went through, he can believe the tale to have been real all along, no issue there…

As always, he’s lost in the grand city of his main rival, and that frustrates him. He’s cold from the water having filled his shoes and wet his hair for hours and hours on end, not even the fire of the camp being able to make him feel warmer. If it wasn’t for his partners’ demands, urging him to stop camping in the wilderness and find a Centre already, he’d have surely stayed in the Wild Area and biked to a better spot. Ah, he misses Postwick, now. At least, he can’t get lost in Postwick, there’d be Hop and his now-Champion best friend, if not Sonia paying them all a visit, and there’d be the warmth of his childhood home… Gods, perhaps he does miss the peaceful life of a ten-year-old whose only contact to the Gym Challenge is dreams of grandeur.

Ah, if it didn’t rain so badly, Charizard could be warming the both of them as he tried to make his way to the nearest Centre.

 Despite his best efforts to remain proud and confident, he ends up having to lean against a wall to stop a coughing fit from suddenly urging itself out of there. He must look pathetic and he does wish, deep down, that someone would get out of their house for a reason or another, recognize him like literally everybody in Galar; but his pride and brand would be on the line, and nobody is fighting against the terrible, terrible weather today. He’s all alone in the streets of the city, pushing himself from the wall with wobbly arms, trying his hardest to remember where to go with slow, hazy thoughts…

Even if he was cold merely moments before, his head now burns. He feels too hot under clothes that are wildly unfitting of such a muddy season, despite the hair rising on what is exposed of his arms. A Cramorant stole his jacket when he was training, a Linoone tried to steal his stuff, and he ended up having a Pokemon knocked out and losing most of his healing items in the kerfuffle. It really hasn’t been his day, lately…

 His chest hurts. Not from the outside, as if he had injured himself in one of the falls he endured trying to feel from the Wild Area with no Pokemon to battle with and the slippery grass constantly trying to get the best of him, but from the inside. He doesn’t doubt the possible existence of bruises under the shirt that sticks to his limbs like a second, drenched skin; but this isn’t it. It intensifies when he coughs and it rattles strangely. When he tries to ignore the excruciating weather wishing for his demise, he hears the strange sounds his breathing now makes. He doesn’t know them so, in a moment of out-of-character lack of reason, he gets scared of them and vaguely wonders about worst-case scenarios.

It isn’t just his chest either. It’s his throat, it’s his mouth, it’s his feet, it’s his legs. Everything in his body is tired and screaming for rest, but he cannot provide it for any of his own self at the moment, stuck trying to navigate with what little he can distinguish with almost-closed eyes from how much he has to squint. His eyes can’t focus anymore, this much he realizes with a bitter sense of resignation, so everything he sees is blurry, including the weird gooey stuff he keeps coughing out whenever he can’t breathe anymore and has to stop for who knows how long.

 He trips over his own unmade shoe tie, losing in one fell swoop what was left of his balance, and falls right into the rainwater that has accumulated on the ground. It sounds and looks and feels like it’s the end, that this is where his journey ends: in some damp street of a city that he has never been able to find his way in, alone, cold and hot at the same time, rain burying him with the rest of the pavement. Not that he even thinks he has the energy to go on… Not like that. Not when his strength, the only thing he thought he had left, has all but given up on him too. Truly alone in a time where, sitting against a giant wall, he realizes what has been going on and poisoning his breath. Hah, ironic.

Still, this isn’t how he should admit defeat. He’s been won over now, and recently at that, and it’d be more than a shame for him to all but give up now. He needs to bring his team to the Centre, he can’t not try taking his revenge on the new Champion, he can’t not at least prove his superior battle skills to Raihan yet again, he just can’t leave Hop, and Sonia, and everyone else like that…

So he rises up once again, on weak arms and unsteady legs, almost tripping over himself, shoulder stuck against the wall. He won’t let this be the end of him.

 Even with a new resolve, it still doesn’t make it much better for him. Unless there’s a miracle happening right before him, he’s stuck with his heavily weakened state trying to find a place whose location he has no idea. His phone doesn’t seem to be able to show a map, its signal disturbed after whatever happened to it while he was looking or doing the polar opposite, so he’s stuck with his truly inefficient sense of orientation.

But it’ll be okay. It’ll have to be okay, because he needs to see Hop become a Professor, to buy Sonia’s new book, to rematch the Champion and his Leader friends, to give his team at least one more chance to shine. It’ll be okay, surely it’ll be okay, of course it’ll be okay… It’ll be okay, because this is all a terrible nightmare he’s going to wake up from, where he isn’t stuck in the torrential rain with a fainted party and very little hope of finding way out.

It’ll be okay, oh so okay…

 He tumbles and falls over again, this time hitting the ground with no grace whatsoever, most likely scratching elbows and knees in the process. Even rising his head up as not to cough in water when a fit claws at his throat again takes most of the energy he has left, only for his blurry sight and cottoned-down hearing to spot the first good thing in who knows many hours: a familiar yelp and vague brown-and-yellow figure rushing towards him.

With a trembling and feeble hand, he tries reaching out to the Yamper who has guided him so many times out of dangerous situations, only for an oh so familiar voice to yell in his direction. Still, it’s hard to know if it’s real or just his imagination. Ah, well; he’ll have to see when he’ll have woken up. If he even wakes up from the darkness starting to invade his vision…

  “Yamper, where in the world are you running like that?!” This creature never stops running, doesn’t it? “Yamper, wait for me!”

If she’s used to her trusty furry assistant running around everywhere it goes and pursuing it, Sonia has to notice there’s something odd in the air. Yamper never goes this fast, especially not in a city where it could smash muzzle first into people. There’s an urgent feeling to its yelps as it runs in one precise direction.

 As suddenly as Yamper started running when she had just gone out of the vault to investigate a little bit more into the Galar mythos she had become a specialist of, it stops right in its tracks in a little street she’s frankly never seen nor noticed before. With how much it’s raining and how unlikely it is to stop pouring soon, she doesn’t want the both of them out for much longer than needed.

She stops to regain her breath, hands on her knees as she folds in two, wet red hair hanging from her head. Yamper stays in place, running around her in circles, then disappearing from her view into the old, little street covered in rain and shadows. It doesn’t seem to have any intent on leaving soon.

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“Why did you… bring me here…? Seriously, it’s raining Growlithes and Purrloins…!”

Still, Sonia gets herself together and goes on to follow her “assistant”. There’s dread building in her chest and stomach that she can hardly ignore… She’s seen enough movies as a teenager to know where this is going. She’s going to end up tangled into some messed-up situation, isn’t she…?

 Her heart skips a beat when she notices a very familiar person lying face down on the pavement, drenched to the bone. A person who hasn’t given her any response or sign of life for a few days.

Someone who’s gotten lost in Hammerlocke again.

 -------

 When he wakes up, everything feels different than the last time he’s been awake. It’s all white, dry and soft. He stills feels too hot and too cold, breathing remains a chore and he wishes he wasn’t there anyway; but he supposes he’s now safe and, honestly, he can’t think of anything much worse than treading through the torrential rain with little strength left.

Now, if he knew what the thing on his face was, he’d be doing a bit better, but his arms feel like they’re made out of lead and he lacks the energy to rise them to his mouth and at least touch it…

 “Leon?”

The voice, even if it’s muffled, is undoubtedly Sonia’s. He can’t quite put a finger on why exactly, yet he feels like this confirms something. If his chest didn’t feel so heavy and full, he’d have sighed in relief. That doesn’t prevent him from coughing again when trying to respond to his own name.

“Let me do the talking, okay? I’m sure you have a metric ton of questions to ask, but for the love of Galar, spare your voice unless necessary.”

 Now that his vision is focusing again, he notices both the pipe inserted in his wrist and the frown on her face. She seems less than content with something. What, he doesn’t quite know, and thinking hurts his head even further than it already bothers him, heavy on his neck despite resting on a pillow. Speaking of which, where is his stuff? His clothes?

“Hey, hey, hey,” Sonia rises from her chair and puts her hands on his chest, putting him back into his mattress. “You stay here and don’t cause anyone any worry more than you’ve already done!”

 He’s confused as to why she’s so adamant on him not doing anything. No speaking, no moving… If he didn’t feel this drained and lethargic, he’d absolutely get back at her with playfulness. Well, that does kind of answer his own question, doesn’t it? Or, at least, it seems to make sense to his brain which has troubles keeping up with the situation…

Yet, he sees a small smirk contrast with her frowned eyebrows. She seems… pained. Pained by what, or who, he doesn’t know; he’s most likely at least partially responsible for it, because she wouldn’t be there otherwise.

 “I don’t know how you’ve ended up in that situation exactly, Leon, but you’ve managed to surpass yourself in terms of putting yourself in harm’s way. You’ve scared us before, but not to that extent!”

“I…” His voice sounds hoarse and it absolutely feels that way. “It’s complicated…”

“Your entire party was fainted, safe for Charizard who was about to follow; you somehow bricked your phone in the process and ended up catching more than a death of cold. Where were you during all that time?!”

Sonia sounds a bit too scared for someone who’s facing her childhood friend stuck in a bed.

“The Wild Area…”

“That’d explain why you were soaked to the bone when I found you lying in a puddle… You’ll have to excuse me for using that crude language, you scared everyone on that one!”

 It’s his turn to ask a little question, even if the state of his body makes him want to remain quiet. Still, no matter how intelligent she is, Sonia doesn’t read minds, so he’s somewhat forced to go through with it if he wants his answers.

“Where are we?”

“A clinic in Hammerlocke. I forgot to add you also scared the ER staff with how bad your breathing was.” Has to be that irritating wheezing sound he’s hearing since he’s woken up. “By the way, since I know you’re going to ask me about that, your team is safe and doing much better now. They’re all gently resting in their balls while you recover.”

He misses Charizard and everyone else already. He owes them a big apology, that’s for sure, but he’s also certain his brain can’t process much right now. Sometimes, you just need to admit yourself to have been defeated… even if it bothers you to no end.

 Sonia paces around for a little bit before sitting down on the chair next to the bed, arms still crossed. She sounds more than frustrated, and, well… He can’t really hold it against her, can he? He already can barely hold anything against her to begin with, considering how much they’ve lived through together; it’s not today, in these circumstances, that he’ll try finding a reason for her not to be frustrated. Who knows how long he’s been gone without giving news: he frankly, forgot how quickly or slowly time was passing while he was wandering through the Wild Area.

“At least, you’re still here and breathing with us. Just, if you could not do that ever again, it’d be better, you know? I can’t always be there worrying after you when I’m now a Prof! Arceus, I don’t even imagine what sequence of events has thrown you into such a state. You looked absolutely pitiful when Yamper found you.”

 He tries to puff at himself to ease the tension he feels rising, but all he ends up doing is coughing. And coughing. And coughing.

“What did I say about sparing your voice? Tch, you’ll never change, will you? You’ve always stubborn, after all, so there’s no reason that’ll change now. That’s part of your charm, I suppose.” She shrugs before suddenly darting her eyes away from him. “But you’re right, I shouldn’t have to worry! You were the Champion of Galar for more than ten years, why would I be afraid of you? That makes very little sense, haha!”

“S-Sonia…”

 He only now spots the dark rings under her eyes and the hair pulling out of her ponytail, one strand at a time. How long was he out for, and for how much of that time was she there, exactly? (Hey, he does work fairly well, for someone who can’t stop sweating and whose entire frame is shaken up by chills at irregular intervals!). Too many questions, too little available brain space, he guesses…

“Go for it, make fun of your good old friend who still hasn’t gotten the memo. I should have been like Hop and blindly believed you’d come back to us, as you’ve always done…”

Oh, right, Hop! How is he doing, has he advanced in his research, does he still worry for him? Well, sadly, it’s not the time to think about his brother: his childhood friend seems to have a meltdown right in front of him.

“Why?”

 Sonia stares at him, completely silent, eyes wide. Seems like she doesn’t have an answer to her own interrogation, until pain comes back on her face like the wave crashing on the shore.

“You don’t… think it’s ridiculous?”

“What?” His throat doesn’t take kindly to his attempts at having a conversation.

“Everything! We swore we’d trust each other, but look at me, worrying over you as if we were still kids running in the fields with the Wooloos… And I’m telling you all that while you’re cooking on the inside! Really, isn’t that ridiculous?”

 Gathering his breath and his strength, he rises up with shaky arms against the bedhead, pillow still preventing his head from entirely lulling over his shoulder from how heavy it is. Whatever he’s caught, it’s one hell of an affliction he’s found himself with. Still, if it’s for Sonia, if she’s this distraught over the situation (he did almost pass away), he can put up with the migraine, the difficult breathing, the mask over his mouth, the lethargy, the chills…

“I’m sorry, Sonia.”

He does cough immediately after apologizing, as expected. For once, she doesn’t reply immediately, doesn’t make a witty remark; instead, she looks confused and maybe embarrassed, considering the red he can see with the eyes that still refuse to entirely focus for more than a few seconds.

“Sorry for what? And, again, spare your voice, you…”

“For all of this.”

 Her expression softens, eyebrows drooping and eyes shining brighter. Even if it’s slight and his eyes almost miss it, she finally smiles.

“How long…?” He’s interrupted by a fit.

“How long you’ve been out?” He nods, still trying to calm his chest down. “Around half a day. You did wake up at some point but immediately passed out again. No wonder why you don’t remember that.”

He now points at her with an unsteady finger. “Why are you… Oh, how long I’ve been here?” He nods again. “Most of that time, I’d say. I’d also say I fell asleep at some point too…”

 She crosses her arms again, just as his vision starts weakening again. It’s back to sleep, right?

“I think we both need our rest. I’m also certain Hop is waiting at the door, so you’ll even have a guardian angel watching over you, isn’t that super cool? And if you attempt rising from that bed, you’re sure to be put back into it in mere seconds!”

He’d try laughing if it didn’t trigger such a massive reaction from his lungs, so he decides to just nod instead.

“See you later, Leon. Goodnight.”

He waves at her, the lethargy still reflecting in his slow and sloppy gestures, but that’s fine enough for now. Her smile is worth it, isn’t it?

 Absolutely worth trekking through the rain with full lungs and little energy left…

[frenchibi]

3, 9, 19 and 22 pleeeeez

THANK U!!! I may have gone a little overboard answering these (sorry not sorry)

[End of the year asks]

3 Favorite musical artist / group you started listening to this year?

Can I have… three? xD (Yes I can, to hell with the rules!!)

The Regrettes (they are SO FUN and I saw a concert in November that was AMAZING) - listen here!

Delta Rae (to be fair I knew one of their songs prior to this year, but then I delved further into their work and AAAAA they make such diverse music I LOVE IT) - listen here!

Dirt Poor Robins (listen. LISTEN. They make musical theater concept albums with a Tim Burton feel WHAT’S NOT TO LOVE) - listen here and here and  here! (can you tell i am obsessed with these)

((honorable mention, I got into Starkid musicals this year and I AM SCREAM))

9 Best month for you this year?

This is such a difficult question, because every month there were really cool things?? (This has been such a good year overall?? ALLOW ME TO GO OFF FOR A SEC)

((adding a cut because this got long I GOT EXCITED, my life is cool???))

In January I got to do a lot of skiing, I had a RAD new year’s party (mostly we played board games and it was exactly what I wanted), and I explored my city a lot? Also there were lots of cool new shows out to watch! AND I visited @notinvidia !!

In February I had a visit from this friend….. and he came to my choir concert at a massive fancy venue that we don’t often get to play………. and I took him skiing………………. OH WAIT THAT WAS YOU WASN’T IT :DDDD(also I was in a bit of an anime nostalgia phase and that was FUN)

March was my birthday (and I LOVE MY FRIENDS SO MUCH AAA I had such a lovely party!!!) and also a bit of a pokemon go revival phase (don’t @ me) and I went on a bunch of rly cool dates with some rly cool ladies!! Meeting new people takes a special kind of energy and I seemed to have a lot of that in March! Also, March marks the beginning of Strawberry Season and I was So Excited hafjkshfhasjkl

In April I got into starkid musicals and spent the rest of the month bingeing everything they’ve ever created - also I got back into painting and I was SO HAPPY to be creating in a medium I hadn’t stared down to death y’know? *glares at ao3 page* Also I still got some end-of-season skiing in, that was very cool!

In May I began to change my aesthetic/clothes a little and I am SO HAPPY with these changes?? Also, I went to London to see @books-and-trees and she showed me a lot of really cool queer places, lovely bookstores, AND she took me to see Les Mis live which has been a LIFELONG DREAM it was AWESOME!! ALSO I met Sandi Toksvig??? Which I still can’t quite believe?????

In June I went on a family vacation to Turkey and it was so fun?? Also I absolutely gorged myself on strawberries and figs (livin my best life tbh), I got back into lots of reading (which, YESSSS) and I finally found a shampoo to solve my hair problems?? It was a good month xD

In July I went to my city’s pride parade with my favorite people (AWESOME), I had a concert with the band I’m in (AWESOME), I allowed myself to go to my favorite art supply store and GO APESHIT (AWESOME), and also I had a brief visit from some dear friends from India!!!!! (AWESOME)!

In August, I attempted a competitive sports thing for the first time in years and I PASSED and was so proud?? Also I took my little sister on her first vacation without our parents (it was SO FUN) and I saw the musical Come From Away, a 100-minute show that had me full-on crying for 95 of those minutes. It was AMAZING. I also went hiking with friends, and I was really obsessed with hot chocolate this month? lmao

September was Friend Meeting Month!! Everyone seemed to be back in town (and by that I mean EVERYONE, I met with twelve friends I don’t often see? TWELVE??? Yeah), and also I was back to choir and band after the summer break, which always really excites me! ALSO, @annoyed-basically taught me how to cross-stitch!! I had a bit of an anxiety-high this month, but I worked it out with my therapist and it all turned out ok :D

In October - I had another band concert and a really cool writing workshop where I met some amazing women! I was also sick for three weeks (oof) but I did catch up on a lot of shows during that time (lmao) and I saw another choir in concert and really, really enjoyed it! Also, we had a Halloween game night with a spooky game and it was SO FUN!!! Also I looked up some really cool DIY stuff for christmas gifts and started CREATING things!!!

November held another trip to London - and this time I SAW HAMILTON!!!!!!!! And oh my GOD it was AMAZING?!?! (I also saw Matilda the Musical, which made me cry LOADS and was so nostalgic and WONDERFUL!) I went on a work trip with my mom, and treated myself to a massive (MASSIVE) plushie because I had a bad day - I also had a choir concert, received a lot of cool art supplies in the mail that I’d ordered months ago and forgotten about (lmao), and had some really really cool nights out with friends!!! I also bought a gorgeous vintage dress that I am incredibly excited about!! AND I went to the aforementioned Regrettes concert (They kicked ASS!!)! ….yeah I think November might be my favorite month, maybe??

December is not over yet, but it has been quite cool so far? Bit of a stressful time preparing for work things and getting gifts done, but I had another choir concert that was awesome, I’m gonna go to some Christmas markets and also I have a five day skiing vacation with my sister coming up, and another new year’s eve party that I’m organizing! Aaaa!!

In conclusion, I have been stressing about my life but ACTUALLY I am living the dream, pretty much?? dfhjklahsdfjk I had a really really good year and I was overdue for one, after the pits of despair that were 2016, 17 and 18 :’)))

19 What’re you excited about for next year?

I haven’t actually planned far ahead yet, beyond like… February? So I am excited for whatever 2020 holds beyond that? I’m sure I’ll manage to do some really, really cool things!!! So far I have a night at the opera planned with a friend (and I am so excited, I so rarely meet people who enjoy opera as well???), and also a trip to India to finally see @joanofarcticmonkeys again, AAAAA!!!!! I AM SCREAM!!!! Also I might get to meet more online friends next year??? Looking at u @floweringscrubs :D

22 Favorite place you visited this year?

I mean… I went to London a LOT (lmao) and I am obsessed with the musical theater scene there? With how every theater is individually decorated and designed and stuff?? Also I went to some really really cool bookshops… :D

Other places closer to home that will always stay favorites include the gorge I like to go hiking in, the art supply store, the bar I frequent with my friends, and the mountains for skiing!!

…ok i’m gonna shut up now lmfao thank you for asking tho and making me remember that I’ve had a REALLY COOL YEAR!!!!!

[mx-bright-sky]

Masterlist for all my bnha AUs

you can ask me about any of these, at any time. I love to talk about my ideas. asking about them will never ever both me.

Warning: the descriptions on the aus are accurate, but not at all written seriously, and i got more bored and wacky as the list went on, enjoy

Ones that have been published on AO3 so far:

Green Lightning: vigilante!izuku au, featuring gadgets, a smug ferret, loopholes, and Shinsou and Hatsume as main characters + two OCs

My Neighbor Midoriya: best friends au with Shinsou and Izuku, featuring lots of fluff, Tsuyu in the Izusquad, actual Bakugou character development, and the complete disregard of just about everything that happens in canon

A Shadow In An Empty Room: ghost quirk!izuku au, featuring NANA SHIMURA, ghostly puns, and lots of various ghosts which may or may not eventually include Touya Todoroki

Crossover AUs/ AUs where the characters are just in the setting of another story:

Hero Emblem: Awakening: Fire Emblem: Awakening au, featuring prince Shouto who adopts random hobos he finds on the ground, izuku who is the random hobo on the ground and also has amnesia, incredibly fed up royal guard Iida, awesome big bro Natsuo, and Shigaraki who hates the good guys because Endeavor is a dick, which is Understandable Have A Nice Day(TM)

Hero Emblem: Fates: Fire Emblem: Fates au, featuring izuku with more low key amnesia, family feud medieval edition, More Shinsou Love, and other worldly shananigans. Also no one dies because I Said So. (also, like in the game, after the chapter where the crossroads comes the audience will get to choose which path to take, and i might end up writing all three paths which would be exhausting but Worth It(TM) )

Hero Emblem: Echoes, Shadows of Valentia: FE: SOV au, featuring an author who Definitely Does Not Have An Obsession with fire emblem, they swear, secret prince Shouto, rowdy boy Izuku, general good friendship, and Darth Vader twists that I saw coming from a mile away in the original game

Rune Hero: Rune Factory 4 au, featuring more amnesia izuku because that’s just how the games i like happen to start, weirdly, Dragon Dad Might, incredibly badass moma Inko, and as much or as little fluff as anyone wants

Puella Magi Izuku Magica: Madoka Magica au, featuring pain, suffering, and ooowwwchhh feelings, but also in the end (because of time shenanigans) everyone lives i promise

Delta Rune au that I don’t have a name for, featuring Shouto eats moss, Shinsou eats chalk, Izuku has the power of fluffy boys, and I Don’t Know Who Lancer Is Yet, But It’s Either Eri Or Prototype Bakugou, Help Me Choose, People

Magnus Chase au that I don’t have a name for either, featuring Norse Mytholigy shenanigans, literally a ray of sunshine Izuku, magic elf Shouto, I Forgot Who Blitzen Is And I’ll Edit It In Later, Fuck, Valkyrie Jirou, chaotic good kids of class 1-A that fuck shit up as a Family, shapeshifter Shinsou, and some good wholesome momojirou

Fossil Fighters Champions au and i’m starting to realize i’m not good at naming things yet, featuring It’s A Pokemon AU But With Dinosaurs, where are all my fossil fighters kids at, Literally A Skeleton Man Toshinori, and low key causing the end of the world by accident

Mekakucity Heroes: Kagepro au (finally something else that actually has a name), featuring One Big Damn Family, whoops I think Kirishima is dead, Bakugou is more depressed and less of a bitch, Izuku is actually 150 years old but is basically 15 in body and spirit so details details, Actually, Technically Everyone Is Dead, But Not, everyone has crazy powers but not the same powers that their quirks are, and Kagepro is fucking weird and also niche so probably a very small fan base here

Sword Hero Online: sao au but it’s 1000% better than sao in every way and makes sense, featuring Everyone Is A Gamer, Bakugou being that douche who cusses people out online in chat, Izuku playing DPS, Kiri playing Tank, Uraraka playing Support, and a story that actually has an end and doesn’t drag out forever

AUs set in the BNHA universe:

Shinsou with One For All AU, featuring bffs Izuku and Shinsou, again, because that’s just my brand at this point, Izuku having a quirk and it’s basically that he’s a dnd character (luck and dice rolls), not much else because I came up with this idea like yesterday and haven’t had a lot of time to plan rip

A Bit Of Irony: Hisashi Midoriya is a villain au, featuring slightly pyrophobic Izuku, bonding over garbage fire dads, and a lot of other things that I don’t want to give away just yet but it’s good trust me I promise

Mirrored Fate: Okay, it’s an au of the above where Izuku has both his parent’s quirks, featuring not really a villain and doesn’t actually want to hurt people but is kinda stuck here Izuku, Shouto befriending the technically not a villain, villains not every getting the hint that Izuku will never stop helping the heroes with shit, and Izuku eventually getting saved I promise

again, because I cannot stop, it’s another au that sort of follows the one above but in this one it’s Villain!Endeavor and Number 2 Hero!Hisashi Midoriya, featuring absolutely horrible garbage fire dads, the number two hero spot must be cursed to make you a douche unless if you’re Hawks, a villain second only to All For One who just wants to beat the shit out of All Might, and like izuku in the au above, shouto helping the heroes at literally any opportunity because the villains can’t catch the hint that these kids are just good kiddos

Shouto and Izuku swap AU, featuring Shouto Midoriya as achey brakey bone hurt juice boy, Izuku Todoroki as oh god stop the feels no, Shouto taking absolutely none of Bakugou’s shit except he can’t actually physically do anything to stop it, making friends and being nice out of spite, and Shouto using support gear which may or may not include a taser which solves a lot of problems to be honest

MY Hero Academia: it’s bnha but I do literally whatever the fuck I want to it when it comes to fixing things, featuring a sentient narrator who is too sassy, Izuku staying quirkless, Bakugou being less of a douche and then getting actual character development, no Mineta, well designed costumes, and much much more

Is It A Crime To Have A Good Time: Fun little one shot where the villains just spend the day at an amusement park. Not doing malicious things, mind you, but just general petty things, such as popping kids’ balloons, cutting in line, playing bumper cart in the go karts that explicitly say ‘do not use like bumper karts’, etc. 

Secret Identities: au where it’s only 8% of the population that has quirks and so they’re more like vigilante heroes that you see in comic books, featuring identity hiding shenanigans, accidentally falling in love with both a person’s secret identity and real person, oblivious lesbians (written by a hella oblivious lesbian), and hiding quirks badly

AU where kouta replaces bakugou and bakugou replaces kouta, featuring an actually decent childhood friendship, Kouta being incredibly done with his reckless bff who just got the ultimate quirk of breaking his bones, and becoming a hero to stop your best friend from getting himself killed smh

it’s bnha but I randomized who ends up in Class A and who ends up in Class B, featuring lots of Class B kids, and honestly, isn’t that enough to make you want it?

The Purrfect Hero: CAT QUIRK AU!! featuring cat boy Izuku, lots of obscure cat facts, absolutely always fucking tired and has sleepy bitch disease Izuku, sometimes knocks things off tables on accident, sometimes knocks things off tables on purpose, feels like he doesn’t get taken seriously, and immediately bonds with Shouto over mmm left side warm and bonds with Shinsou over ‘OH MY GOD YOU’RE A CAT’

Underground Avengers: okay, you know how in like episode two when All Might is explaining his injury he says he got it in a fight five years ago, and we as the audience now know that it was against AFO??? Okay, in this AU, the result of that fight was reversed and AFO won and All Might is in hiding and unable to use his quirk anymore, featuring dystopian au vibes, Aizawa Is Always A Mom, secretly used to be a pro hero Inko, and actually on the side of the good guys for once Stain even those he’s a bastard and I hate him in canon

there’s probably more that I’m forgetting, but I’ll edit it and add what I’m missing later

[skypxllar]

// I've been recently replaying the Delta episode of ORAS and I noticed that half the fandom hates Zinnia while the other half praises her. Why is that? She's one of the most in-depth and interesting characters in the entire franchise, not to mention her fun personality, awesome design and theme....Also she's hot. They seem to nitpick her writing in a way that can be applied to most pokemon characters anyways. Also Zinnia x Steven...The guy who indirectly was involved with Aster's death?....No.

I’m glad that you asked, nonny! I’ve been doing some digging into forums, general opinions, and the source material (most notably the Delta Episode since, you know, that’s her only appearance) to understand this, and I hope to answer you in a satisfactory manner.

[under a READ MORE because it’s so long]

Firstly, I want to say something really quick: I am mostly going to only be speaking of her appearance in Pokemon Omega Ruby and Pokemon Alpha Sapphire. I will not be speaking much of her appearance in Pokemon Adventures, as she’s characterized slightly different and because I’m honestly less versed with the manga (I don’t particularly like the overt dark tones of the manga, manga and anime doesn’t appeal to me, and I’ve only read Red/Blue, Yellow, a little bit of Gold/Silver, and the Delta Episode portion of Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire), but there is one aspect of her in that particularly that I’m aware of that I’ll mention…. But let’s try to stick with the games, shall we?

Starting off, let’s address one of the Donphan in the room that you may have realized as well: the writing. Honestly, the writing along with the game design of Pokemon Omega Ruby and Pokemon Alpha Sapphire was… not the best let’s say? There’s an inherent reason to this. GAME FREAK, the developers of the Pokemon franchise, churns out almost yearly releases of Pokemon games. Surprisingly though, despite Pokemon’s massive sales (for reference, Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire has collectively sold 14.13 million units and Pokemon Sun and Moon has collectively sold 16.13 million units. FINAL FANTASY XV, the latest in one of the largest JRPG franchises in video game history, has only sold 8.1 million units), there are much less people working on a Pokemon game at any one time. Most Pokemon game is developed over the course of 3 years, similar to the cycle that Activision goes through with Call of Duty; however, unlike Call of Duty or FINAL FANTASY, there are many less developers working on a single Pokemon game at once. For reference, the largest amount of people working on a Pokemon game was the development of Pokemon X and Pokemon Y was 120 people, and, even then, Masuda has stated that he didn’t like that many because of the “too many cooks” analogy. FINAL FANTASY XV had 200-300 developers in 2014, and there are western developers that had 1,000-man teams. Because of all of this, many of their development doesn’t end up to be fully fleshed out, giving them time and, sometimes, budget constraints. This is even more prominent when it comes to remakes, as those are normally in development sometime in between two generation’s development cycles. Even worse, this is especially prominent when making the shift from 2D development and 3D development, as 3D development requires a lot more work and man hours to make a fully cohesive world with little to no kinks.

Now, why do I say all of that? Well, sometimes, due to these constraints, many aspects of a game can take a hit. A game’s writing can be one of them. The Delta Episode had to consist of a story that was about… 2-3 hours long. That required a new story with the inclusion of a new character (Zinnia), changes to core ideas (Deoxys being Legendary and no longer mythical), and a concept that helped to understand the conveying ideas of the game (Both the idea of the Infinity Energy used to create and use the Ultimate Weapon creating rifts in time and space to yield the difference between the Mega Evolution timeline and the Connectivity Timeline AND the idea of the clash between modern technology and tradition & culture). That’s why Zinnia seemed to have too little screen time or seemed to “come out of nowhere” on your first playthrough. Even worse, due to her… well… personality and plans, Zinnia comes off as nothing but a thieving jerk when, in fact, she’s a very in-depth character that’s centered around handling the loss of a close friend, the coming of a prophecy and a solution that will help both her own world and the speculated/fabled Connectivity Timeline. She’s a troubled girl that’s doing the best that she could do to save everything, even if it meant risking the region. Most developers and writers would make an entire game or story centered around that concept, so the fact that GAME FREAK tried to incorporate that while simultaneously making a by-the-numbers remake in such a short amount of time was a heavy undertaking.

That said, I’m not faulting anyone for not liking her. Again, on a first or second playthrough, even I was like “wait where in Rayquaza’s name did you come from” thanks to the fact that the main tease to her existence (the end of Petalburg Woods) was just so early in the game and the fact that you don’t see her until the very end of the game, yet “somehow” she was the entire cause of the course of the story to occur. Add on her… well… polarizing personality and you have a recipe for people loving and/or hating her. Does that make sense?

One last thing I want to address is Zinnia x Steven. In the Delta Episode of the games, there is not even a hint to suggest that Steven (though, I’d argue it was more Mr. Stone that she was angry at if I remember properly) was involved with Aster’s Death (directly or indirectly). Aster could have died to Rayquaza himself and Zinnia would feel the same way in the games about them. The reason why she was so… harsh towards the Devon family in the games was because of the clash between tradition and technology. They were planning on using their technology to drive away the meteor instead of trusting in the power of Mega Rayquaza as the Draconids have prepared to do for the past 2,000 years. That’s honestly reason enough for her to be so harsh at them, especially for a girl that’s going through grief enough. It was the Manga that added that entire bit about Aster dying in a fire, and, while that IS interesting, it’s not confirmed though developer interviews or gameplay that I could find. Heck, all that we know about Aster are 4 things:

She’s dead,

She was close to Zinnia,

She was the previous Lorekeeper, and

She had some type of special powers

Despite that, I would agree with you with the fact that Zinnia x Steven would be uh… bad. They have little-to-no chemistry and the ship mostly spawned from her constantly teasing and annoying him thanks to her personality (and the fact that significantly less people would be okay with Zin x protag despite her doing the exact same thing to them thanks to VERY likely age gap). Even if my Zinnia was straight, because of this, I wouldn’t ship them myself. She’d be better off with Winona, Roxanne, or Wallace in Hoenn or, if we’re crossing regions, someone like Iris, Lance (BIG MAYBE), Clair (stretch), N, or Soliera (since most of the prominent people in Sun and Moon are either children or pretty old and mature and wouldn’t go well with ORAS Zinnia unless she goes through a redemption arc like I suspect).

Does all of this makes sense? Did I miss or forget anything? Do you have any more questions? I love Zinnia a ton (she’s my favorite character. Cynthia is 2nd) so I’ve been looking though this a lot.

Oh and sources:

GI Show about Pokemon Development: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi4bxT_Bb4c (24:09 is the talk about Pokemon X and Y having 120 developers)

FINAL FANTASY XV Developers: https://gematsu.com/2014/09/final-fantasy-xv-director-talks-development-open-world-combat-demo

FINAL FANTASY XV sales: https://gearnuke.com/final-fantasy-xv-sales-exceed-8-1-million-units-worldwide/

Pokemon ORAS and SM sales: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/finance/software/3ds.html

I’d give the link to the tweet that transcribed the interview for Aster, but apparently that account is suspended, but, if you can get your hands on it, the interview that mentioned Aster is in the June 2015 issue of Nintendo DREAM. It’s in Japanese though.

[jasmiinininja]

Tagged by the great and powerful @8-bit-heart

RULES:

1. answer the new questions given by the previous person 2. write 11 new questions 3. tag 11 people (i don’t even have that many people</3)

If you could domesticate one wild animal and keep it as a pet, which species would you pick? -Magpie, tho lynx would be cool too hue

Favorite trope in fiction? -Sorry I don’t knoww (haunted/sp00py hospitals/asylums in horror are neat tho, do we count that as answer?)

Game/book/movie with the best ending? -Hmmm i remember how ending of “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” had me all ooOOooOOo when I was little so lets say that 

If you could punch one fictional character, who would you choose? -Many are “kinda like daughter I want to slap” but I’d personally wanna punch Ross from Friends lmao. Not beat him up, just punch

Best book cover you’ve ever seen? -Never seen good book cover

Do you keep plants? If yes, do you name your plants? -I had flamingo flower named Flamingo flower but it died 

What color do you really want to dye your hair? -I don’t really wanna dye my hair but I’d try blonde if I dared

I’m running out of ideas. Uuuuh… Favorite drink? -Baby I’ll drink anything and enjoy it (expect cola or pepsi)

Where does a general keep his armies? -Up in his sleevies 

What’s the meaning of life? -42

… Would you fight me? don’t be a coward, come on and fight me (ง •̀_•́)ง -I’m writing from the pit Matry where are you?

My questions~

Your favorite pokemon type?

Do you like traveling? 

Do you have Hidden Talent?

Food you don’t like?

Would you pet my dog? 

Would you rather have ability to breathe underwater or fly?

Are you a good witch or a bad witch?

Summer or winter?

Animated movie you really like?

Movie you thought was going to be good but it wasn’t?

(I’ll steal his one from matry yoink) If you could pick any wild animal to keep as pet, which would you choose?

Tagging: @beck-delta @lumpybells @gentle-odds @cyanideandarsenic take no pressure, answer if you feel like it~

[pokemon-card-of-the-day]

Pokemon Card of the Day #3000: Flygon δ (Holon Phantoms)

It took me quite some time to figure out the best card for 3,000 since Holon's Castform had already been done for a milestone and I didn't want to use the exact same Pokemon. It took some writing of something else with a friend (hi Ruby!) to get me to a conclusion here. Flygon δ was the center of a deck that just piled in all sorts of Delta Species Pokemon, and with the concept being so interesting and the variety all over, Flygon δ was one of those cards that people were just going to find a way to use well eventually. And, seeing that this was legal in the wide-open format of 2007, it had some success.

110 HP was actually quite good for a single Prize Stage 2 back then, and while you weren't likely to be stacking Metal Energy onto it to boost that bulk too much in its style of deck, it would be very likely to take a hit, and occasionally more depending on the match-up and point in the game it was. Games did move more slowly on average back then than they do today. The Colorless Weakness was notable, with it being most important against Flygon ex (the normal one, not the Delta Species... welcome to that format I talked about) and Delcatty and its ex, and Crystal Shard being available could turn any deck into a threat against this if it was teched in. There was also a really cool double resistance to Lightning and Fighting here. This was great in a world with plenty of Fighting-types around to try to take advantage of that very common Weakness in the format, and also provided some cushion against Dragonite δ, Rayquaza ex δ, and Electivire. The Retreat Cost here was 2, and could be kind of awkward as fitting switching cards into a deck built around this wasn't the easiest thing in the world.

Delta Supply was the type of Poke-Power that decks were built around. Once during your turn, you could attach a basic Energy or a δ Rainbow Energy from your hand to 1 of your Pokemon with δ on the card. It was blocked if Flygon δ had a Special Condition on it, which could be notable every once in a while if Active and up against something like Flareon ex but usually it was fine. This was just an extra Energy attachment and made it easy to get more on the board or to set up for a single turn Holon's Castform attachment. This Poke-Power opened up almost any δ Pokemon to being used with it. Some of the most common included Flygon ex δ, Exeggutor δ, Rayquaza ex δ, Mew δ, and Nidoqueen δ, but you could play around with all kinds of things here.

Swift was a decent attack doing 60 damage and ignoring Weakness, Resistance, Poke-Powers, Poke-Bodies, and other effects on the Defending Pokemon. A Grass, a Metal, and a Colorless Energy would have been a far more awkward attack cost if it wasn't on a Pokemon with Delta Supply, but it was pretty solid due to that. The main issue with the attack is that you'd often want to attack with your other Pokemon instead, which usually had a higher ceiling. Flygon δ could go on the offense if needed, especially if you could build more of them on the Bench.

Flygon δ was the center of one of the more interesting decks the game has seen, providing extra Energy attachments, including Special Energy, to any δ Pokemon around. With the off-type Pokemon idea being so interesting (something we're finally seeing again in a different way currently), the number of options from 4 sets of these sorts of Pokemon, a Pokemon that helped set up and work as Energy in Holon's Castform, and an entire Trainer engine to work with, it was no wonder that Flygon was successful. The deck could be hard to play, so it took some time to get used to what to do, but once you got there it was a fun one indeed.

[sage-nebula]

Besides the black and white games which Pokemon games did you find to be the most well written.

HMMMM . . . I’m going to go ahead and rank them by region, with 1 being the best, and 7 being the worst.

Unova

Hoenn

Alola

Sinnoh

Johto / Kalos

Kalos / Johto

Kanto

Hoenn is a bit difficult to rank, because Emerald Version is vastly superior to either Ruby Version or Sapphire Version, which means that Hoenn should technically be broken up to show that Emerald comes before either Ruby or Sapphire. However, both AlphaSapphire and OmegaRuby also have elements---namely the Delta Episode and that amazing gift to the Pokémon games known as Zinnia, but also distinct personalities for the characters of Archie and Maxie---that Emerald didn’t. So in a way, the remakes kind of tie with Emerald, but Emerald is still superior in other respects (e.g. two antagonistic teams, a much better climax, et cetera). It’s kind of like how it’s impossible for me to decide whether Gen VI or Gen VII are better in terms of gameplay. They keep wrestling with each other for top spot because they both have glaring strengths and weaknesses.

With that said, though, although it’s difficult for me to decide whether Emerald or ORAS is my favorite Hoenn game (honestly, they could have solved this problem by giving us DeltaEmerald, but alas), I still think the Hoenn games are the second best written games in the series. Unova is first for obvious reasons. Alola could have been second (or even first!), but the more time I spend away from it, the more the issues become apparent to me, and I’m never going to be over how disgusting Lusamine’s “redemption” was in the end, particularly since it has led to the fandom woobie-fying and excusing her blatant, on-screen abuse of her children, in ways I’m sure they wouldn’t if she was a man. (I mean, the disgusting “alas, poor villain” the game gave her certainly contributes to it, but I’m positive the Unova games could have done the same for Ghetsis and people would still hate him, because female abusers always get less harsh treatment than male abusers do. As someone with a very abusive biological mother, this is the sort of thing that personally upsets me to no end.) Gladion and Lillie both deserved better than what they got, and so while the Alola games do have strengths in the narrative, ultimately the way the Aether Foundation part of the plot was handled drags them down.

I’m personally not a fan of the Sinnoh games, story-wise, but I do think they were still written well, and I think that perhaps my dislike of them stems from my dislike of Sinnoh as a region (and most of the Sinnoh ‘dex due to how many of them are pre-evolutions / new evolutions for existing pokémon). With that said, I haven’t played the Sinnoh games in years, and because I’m me I will buy the remakes when they’re announced (come on, we all know they’re going to be), so it’s possible that improvements will be made and my opinion will change then. Depending on how much I like the story this time around, the Sinnoh story might move up to spot three, particularly considering (again) the glaring flaws and weaknesses in the Alola narrative. Even if I don’t personally feel attachment to Sinnoh’s characters or story, this is a question of what is more well-written, and it’s entirely possible that Sinnoh has a stronger narrative than Alola. We’ll see.

Johto and Kalos are difficult for me to rank because Johto barely has a story (though it still has more of one than Kanto, but that’s not saying much), but the story it does have is good. I’m still salty that they weren’t willing to change enough in HGSS to flesh out the story more. I get why they didn’t---an in-game Game Freak NPC straight up says that they tried to change enough things to keep them fresh, while keeping enough the same to keep fans happy---but it still upsets me, because with the Johto games there is so much potential to make them more than they are, and yet that’s potential that is wasted. Still, what is there is good. All of the characters are likable, there’s good development (Johto Rival has some of the best development), the legends and lore are fascinating, et cetera.

Meanwhile, there’s a lot more to the Kalos games, but even though there’s more, I still dislike it and find it to be a mess. And keep in mind, I played both X and Y; it’s not as if I only played one of them and made a judgment. I played them both. The rivals were aggravating and shallow, Team Flare was written to be a “lighthearted, joke team” according to Game Freak and yet they wanted to commit mass genocide, and the fact that these two ideas---that they’re a comic relief team that wanted to commit genocide---existed in the same game led to not enough gravity being applied to the situation. LIke, for fucksake, in the Unova games all Team Plasma wanted to do was make it so that Ghetsis was the only person in Unova with pokémon, and everyone in the narrative flipped their fucking shit over the idea that they might not be allowed to train pokémon anymore. We had an entire showdown at N’s Castle with all of the Gym Leaders (minus the Striaton Trio) showing up at the end of the first game. Yet in Kalos, Lysandre makes a region-wide broadcast about wanting to commit genocide, and yet the only ones to do anything about it are the player, the rivals, and Sina and Dexio on Sycamore’s orders. And then there’s Sycamore’s speech about how he wanted Lysandre to “set his pride aside” which just . . . it seriously reminded me of Cho saying that Marietta was “a lovely person who made a mistake,” which, okay, that’s fine for Marietta “I Sold Out the DA” Edgecombe, but not so fine for Lysandre, who wanted to commit mass genocide, ugh. (And I’m not bashing Sycamore here so much as I’m criticizing the writing; while I felt angry at Sycamore for phrasing things like that while playing, in retrospect I’m more infuriated at Game Freak for actually writing this.) I felt like the same level of gravitas was given to Lysandre wanting to commit genocide as was given to Team Rocket’s shenanigans in the first two gens. Had the Kalos games been games from an earlier generation, it might have been more excusable; but they followed the Unova games, which were such well-written Pokémon games that really filled the player with a sense of urgency and appropriate drama and determination, and as such they were a complete letdown. 

So tl;dr on this: The Kalos games had a more fleshed out plot, and that should theoretically put them above the Johto games, which were pretty bare bones. However, the bare bones we had in the Johto games were better written than the flesh we had in the Kalos games (which were terribly written even though they could have been so much better, as the PokéAni proved by miles, god bless the PokéAni), and as such it’s hard for me to decide where they go.

Finally, the Kanto games barely have a plot (they have the least plot of them all), and what is there is . . . unimpressive, to say the least. I mean, it’s actually a little hilarious to me how Giovanni is taken so seriously in Pokémon fandom, because in all honesty he’s a complete joke. I think part of this is due to the PokéAni; Giovanni is far more powerful, strong, and intimidating in the PokéAni than he ever is in the games, and Team Rocket’s influence is far more wide-reaching as well. The TRio aside, the rest of Rocket’s agents and executives and scientists are actually frightening in the anime. But in the games? Giovanni loses a couple of battles to a child and then tries to disband his entire organization. They reform without him and he’s about to go help, but then he loses another battle and leaves once more to go continue sulking. It’s pathetic. Team Rocket may be my favorite villainous organization in Pokémon (could have been the Aether Foundation, but Game Freak fucked that one up), but the game!Giovanni is pathetic, and since the Kanto games don’t have a plot beyond “be the very best like no one ever was and I guess beat up Team Rocket sometimes,” they’re at the bottom of the pile as far as narrative quality goes.

[frcidyne]

Download iNDS Emulator iOS 12/11 | No Jailbreak

gba4ios-download.com | Do you wonder if you can play Nintendo DS on your iPhone or iPad? Well, we have the answer for you. It is actually possible for you to play Nintendo DS games like Pokemon Black Version, Pokemon SoulSilver Version, Mario Kart DS, Pokemon Diamond, and many more. You can play those Nintendo DS games with Nintendo DS emulator. iNDS emulator is one of the best Nintendo DS emulator apps that you can have for your iOS devices. Here, we will discuss how to download iNDS emulator iOS 12/11 without Jailbreak.

Download iNDS Emulator for iOS 12/11

iNDS emulator lets you run Nintendo DS games on your iPhone or iPad. It runs smoothly on iOS 12 or 11 too. So, you don’t need to be worry about it even though you are using the recent iOS version. Scroll down to find the tutorial how to download iNDS emulator for iOS 12/11.

Application Information File name: iNDS File size: 18.1MB Version: v1.9.1 Compatibility: iOS 8.0 or later

How to Download iNDS Emulator iOS 12/11 Without Jailbreak.

As you know that iNDS Emulator iOS 12/11 is not available in App Store, so we will show you how to download iNDS from TweakBox. Just follow the simple instructions below to do so:

1. First, you must download TweakBox download app from here and install it on iPhone. 2. Then, press the icon on the home screen to launch TweakBox download app. 3. Tap the APPS tab on the top and scroll down to go to the Tweakbox Apps. 4. Type iNDS in the Search bar on the top to quickly find iNDS emulator iOS app. 5. Next, press iNDS icon from the result to go to the download page. 6. In the iNDS download page, tap on the Install button and tap on it again on the confirmation pop up. 7. Wait until the installation is completed.

Press the home button to go back to the home screen. There, you will find the iNDS emulator iOS icon. Tap on it to run iNDS emulator on your iOS device.

Related:

GBA4iOS for iOS 11/10

Delta Emulator for iPhone

Happy Chick iOS 11/10

How to Add Nintendo DS ROM in iNDS Emulator iOS

After you have successfully downloaded iNDS emulator app on your iPhone, I believe that you can’t wait to start playing the Nintendo DS game on your iPhone. But you cannot do it just yet. You need to download Nintendo DS Roms in iNDS emulator to be able to play Nintendo DS games in it.

It is easy to add Nintendo DS Roms in iNDS emulator iOS app. We will tell you how to do it in the tutorial below.

1. Run iNDS emulator on your iPhone. 2. Hit on the magnifying icon on the top right to search for the Nintendo DS ROMs right from the app. 3. You will see a list of results of websites that you can use to download the Nintendo DS Roms from. 4. Go to one of the website to download the Nintendo DS Roms that you want. 5. Then, tap on the Download button to download Nintendo DS Roms to iNDS emulator app. 6. The Nintendo DS Rom’s file size is quite big, so you must be patient. It’s usually around 100MB. Make sure that you have a stable internet connection. 7. Once the Nintendo DS Rom file has been downloaded in iNDS emulator, you can play the game.

That’s it! Download the Nintendo DS Roms as many as you want because they are available for free. Bring the nostalgia of playing the retro games like Nintendo DS on your iPhone.

Thank you for reading gba4ios-download, Folks! If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to write them in the comments section below. We would answer it as fast as we can. Happy playing!

Source: https://gba4ios-download.com/download-inds-emulator-ios-12-11-no-jailbreak/

[defunctblogtobedeleted]

8/26/17, 4:31pm - Some Kinda Closure

gonna actually try to write this time.

So I had no patients for tuesday, but my boss let me work during the day to cover the hours. What that meant is that I worked 18 hours straight on a day where I told my buddy Jwilli that he could stay at my place and that I’d want to take him out for karaoke. Couldn’t manage to take a nap and proceeded to have the longest fucking day of my life. Bustered out in bracket and got bummed out, went to hang out with Angie and convinced her to come out to karaoke with us. Smoked on the back patio of the bar with these randos (I fucking love greensboro sometimes), told a bunch of stupid jokes and bounced to this bar closer to my house with Josh, the queen I met last time. Turns out him and angie already knew each other. So I’m meeting a bunch of his friends (couldn’t possibly tell you any of their names now), get in this big hissyfit argument with this girl friend of his who said she was pansexual, and when I described myself as biflexible she said that it was disgusting and that I just wanted to get laid when I was drunk. All I could say was pretty much, yeah, i mean who doesn’t want to get laid when they’re drunk. Plus I don’t wanna tease gays by saying I’m really bi that’s not fair lol. She tried to convince me that since I felt some attraction to men sometimes that you might as well call it bi and I was like “well that’s silly that’s like everyone should just be pansexual then.” Idk the conversation didn’t end up with us fighting so that’s good. Luckily drunk me has that trollish charm that people can just slide anger off of lmfao. After we popped by Josh’s a sec we were gonna go to another party but Jack and Angie were tired, so I took them home and had some great drunk sex. That was the last I’d see of Angie. After this trip she ended up breaking things off a few days ago.

But things with her were a little wonky, yknow? Like she wasn’t too confident in her appearance and was always confused that I’d flirt and say things like “i’m not someone to lust after.” I guess she was kinda right, I wasn’t overly excited about her appearance as much as her personality, but it’s a shame. I had encouraged her to pick up this second job that was more like what she wanted to do with her life, she got it no problem, but got doubly busy so I’m assuming she just became too adulty and didn’t really have time for me. Or whatever it doesn’t really matter, it’s nice having someone break things off and not feel bad about it.

Between her telling me I’m sexy as fuck and all these gay guys hitting on me all the time I’m pretty confident in how I look again lol. Not overly confident, I still wanna cut all this silly gold hair off now and maybe tone up a bit but not enough that I actually care to do anything about it lmaooo.

/

So anyway, that weekend was the annual delta sig reunion. Really happy that my boss switched my shifts so that I could go. It was probably the best thing that could’ve happened to me. Getting to bro out with everyone and share music with Nic and talk about Kailey stuff with Tato and Dakota and drunkenly bro with everyone up on the rooftop was amazing. We got fucking plastered playing drinking games, it was incredible. Got some great pics, but ofc I don’t share my pics with anybody lol.

The catch with the alumni weekend though was that Kailey was coming to spend the day with Jacober on day 2. So at first I was the tiniest bit salty. She shows up at the pool party and acts like I don’t exist at first, of course. And she looks as incredible as ever. So I pour myself into drinking, play the pokemon drinking board game with everyone, catch up with everyone. Hung out in the sauna cooking myself and drinking it was excellent lmao. We ended up talking a bit and I found out she’s got a great new job lined up making twice as much money as me right out of college and is doing well, so that’s good.

The best way to describe our relationship now is that we’re strangers who happen to know each other very well. I like that description a lot.

There was this great moment where I’m like drunkenly sulking by the poolside and this fat chick that one of the younger brothers had brought walks up to me. She says “did you mean to dye your hair that color?” I say “yeah, I wanted it like yellowish gold.” and she just says “well it’d look better if you’d dye it lighter.” and I just say “well you’d look better if you lost some fucking weight.” bahahahaha. She got that it was just a rib and playfully kicked at me, but I was at That level of not giving a fuck from the whole ordeal. Took a great group pic and I laid around sunning in my supreme hat and Griff told me that “I looked like a rapper.” I think that means he thinks i’m cool, i took it as high praise lmao.

 So we leave the lake house and I’m heading home with tato and dakota, Conner asks “where are jacober and kailey?” and I like mutter “well I don’t give a shit.” and he laughed and just says “hah I caught that.” So Dakota and Tato are like trying to get my feelings out of me because all I’ve said about anything is that and when tato had asked if I was gonna be ok with kailey being there I loudly and overexcitedly (intentionally in order to express my sarcasm) Oh yeah it’s fucking great.  It’s hard to describe. I’m like feeling great and having a good time with everyone, but fading in and out of this state of like salty disdain with everything. And tato can clearly pick up on this, so he’s trying to cheer me up by talking to the uber driver.

The uber driver tells us about how he’s ubering to make some extra money to take care of his kids since a divorce, but that now he’s in this wonderful relationship with this girl that he loves. So tato’s like “see? Things get better.” So he starts asking about more details and like this guy’s story is nutty. His first wife leaves him, he starts dating this girl from high school who has a few daughters and after like a year of dating and living together one day she up and leaves and takes all of his shit and maxxes out a bunch of credit cards in his name. And even though they weren’t married the court rules in her favor that he has to pay for all of it. So that’s why he’s really ubering on the side. And the girl he loves works night shift and he works day shift AND they’re long distance so they don’t get to see OR talk to each other much. So i just come out of the uber shaking my head and joking like “damn, with a life like that when do you just like call it quits?” Like suicide isn’t funny i guess, but god damnnnn hahahahah. 

So the three of us bro out in the dorm rooms we’re staying at, and I open up a little bit about feeling inadequate and about that time of my life being over and whatnot. And tato was just like “yeah well she was too young for you anyway.” So I hrmphed that, but I knew what he meant, because the split really was because that time of my life was just ending. So it led to this realization that a lot of my depression and feelings for kailey were all just tied up in this post-college doldrum nostalgia. Good to finally realize that that’s normal. College is cool, adulthood sucks, it’s nothing to sit and cry about. So that was part 1 of moving on.

We proceed to get drunk and high on the rooftop again that night. I’m flirting with this girl grace, we’re all hanging out topless (girls have bras on) playing this game piccolo and drinking. Kailey and Jacober and a few people are still hanging around. Her and Jacober kiss and I call out gayyyyyyyy and she gets all defensive saying how yeah it IS gay because she’s really happy. All I could think was that I’m glad she’s happy, but you’ve missed the joke lmao. Shrugged off that response. So later people are starting to drift off, and Kailey and I finally got a few words with her one on one while we smoked a joint together, but we didn’t really say much. She told me she didn’t like my hair either but I didn’t really give a fuck. She talked about how much she hated when people got in the way of her getting high and I thought about that girl I just broke things off with and how they really did sound exactly the same.  Then have one of the best one on one talks with Jacober that I’ve ever had. We talked about our dads and life a little bit. I really fucking love that guy he’s so damn nice lmao. He goes to grab something for Kailey and like skips away and me and Kailey say at the same time “what a cuuuutey.” Then she looked at me almost frustrated like I was making fun of her until she saw that I was being genuine? Idk I was a little drunk and high who knows how reliable a narrator I really am, but this is how I remember it. 

Then I’m hanging out with gus and his friend singing out frank ocean jams, until his friend starts crying about how his friend died. I say whoooo ok i’ve gotta go and tag along with jacober and kailey as we leave the roof. Don’t really remember talking about anything of importance, just said goodbye when we got to our rooms and said to have a good night. Like I said, strangers who know each other really well. But like all of it, her just being salty and negative reminded me that I was better off. So part 2 of moving on.

In the morning Dakota Tato Jack and I went to bojangles and joked about a bunch of shit before peaceing out. Really was a fucking great weekend.

[sage-nebula]

oohhh, pokemon games or your personal pokeverse for the meme?

OOOOH, this is going to be really hard, since there are so many characters that I’m sure I’m going to forget some, but I will try! Also, these two things are kind of one in the same for me, because I adapt the games to my personal ‘verse as they come out. So like, for me, even if they’re technically not, the Red and Green we see in the Gen VII games would be, in my ‘verse, my versions of Red and Green. (And Leaf is also there, but she was drawn to the Aether Foundation because she was curious about Ultra Beasts . . . oh Leaf, what did you get yourself into?)

But hmmm, okay, let’s see---

Zinnia --- MY GIRL, MY LOVE, THE LEGEND, THE LOREKEEPER. BEST CHARACTER IN THE GAMES HANDS DOWN, 500/10, BEAUTIFUL, FANTASTIC, ASTOUNDING, A++++, WHY DOES NINTENDO KEEP TREATING HER LIKE DIRT, I’LL NEVER UNDERSTAND.Okay, now that that’s out of the way, I love Zinnia. Okay? I really love Zinnia a lot. She’s hands down easily my favorite character across the games, period, and I am beyond salty that Pokémon Generations denied her an episode. Like, honestly, my salt for this exceeds even my salt that they used Blair instead of Lea in the B2W2 shot, and that’s saying something. (Even if it just barely surpasses it. Just barely.) I love everything about Zinnia. I love that she has the best Trainer Class in all of the games (LOREKEEPER, how cool is that?!). I love that she comes from what is heavily implied to be an aboriginal race of people in the Hoenn region, that this is just a part of her character but does not define her (and that this is even lampshaded, with this exchange:STEVEN: “You’re the---!”ZINNIA: “The Draconid, yup. But you can just call me Zinnia.”This is after she has introduced herself, so Steven really has no excuse---and Zinnia calls him on it in a way that feels completely natural and flows with the script. Love it. I love her sass, and her snark. I love her determination. I love that she knows she has to sacrifice herself and she tries to look for another way, suggests that the others come up with another way, but when she sees that there isn’t she does what must be done anyway because she knows she has to. And I relate to her, too, in her grief over Aster; Shiloh died shortly after the ORAS games came out (they released in November of 2014, and Shiloh died in my arms on 9 January 2015), and so I was playing the Delta Episode right around that same time. Zinnia’s speech about the original Aster hit me hard, becuase that is exactly how I felt about Shiloh, right down to:“We were always together, in good times and in bad. I loved her . . . I loved her with everything I had, but . . . I still lost her.”Word for word, that’s how I felt about Shiloh. Her grief, her desire to do anything to see Aster again---I empathize, oh so deeply.I love Zinnia. I love everything about Zinnia. Fandom hates her, but of course they do, fandom always hates my faves. But I love her. I just wish Nintendo could show her the same amount of love. //salty4life

Leaf Tyler --- I am always, always, always going to have a soft spot for Leaf, the girl who I honest to goodness wish had been in the original Kanto games (and she was originally going to be, but it was either a time issue or a cartridge space issue or both that kept her out), the girl that I know eight-year-old me would have latched onto with a grip so tight you’d think she had rigor mortis on top of being frozen solid. I’ve of course fleshed her out far beyond anything Game Freak has done, but I love every bit of this girl that I’ve created.She’s whip-smart, she’s incredibly determined, she’s headstrong when it comes to what she wants and what she chases after. She doesn’t let the criticisms or condemnations of anyone get her down (and boy have there been a lot of those given her insistent belief in legendaries that the rest of Kanto---or at least her home town of Pallet---scoffs at). She’s incredibly passionate about what she loves and nothing, not even eldritch abominations or legendaries that can and will kill her, will frighten her away from her goal. She is a myth hunter who is determined to be a lorekeeper in her own right (even if not in the same way Zinnia is), and she chronicles everything she knows in extensive journals. Professor Oak probably suggests at one point that she try her hand at being a professor herself in an effort to get her to settle down, but nah. Nah. There are ruins to be spelunked, there are eldritch abominations to chase. She’s not stopping for anything.Professor Oak just sighs.

Whitlea “Lea” Fiona Fair --- How could I not mention my girl Lea? Lea, like Leaf, is rather headstrong and determined---but she’s always determined about all the wrong things (well, usually). This is a girl who sees life as a giant adventure and, if it isn’t, then she will make it one. She hates sitting still. She eats nachos for breakfast. She legitimately traded her Pokédex for a special Zelda edition DS Lite because she wanted to play Spirit Tracks, and she has forbidden Bianca from telling Cheren because Cheren will tell Professor Juniper and then Lea will get in trouble. She’s being followed around by a Victini she calls Thing because Thing imprinted on her, thinking she’s its mom, because she accidentally woke it up in Liberty Tower. She has dubbed N “Captain Unova” because he never understands any references. The only books she reads are comic books, she loves sports and games, won’t tolerate it at all if you fuck with her friends and, as of the latest chapter, is feeling seriously conflicted over this whole “pokémon liberation” dealio.Basically, Lea is a helluva lot of fun to write and, since I know all of Reversi even if I haven’t written it, I know all about her character development and think it’s great. I love Lea. I’ll always love Lea. And I still think she has the best design out of any of the female protags, hands down.

Mortimer “Morty” Matsuba --- I’m never going to ever stop loving Morty. Morty is a character I always loved due to his design, but I really fleshed out his character when writing liveblog drabbles of SoulSIlver back in the day, and I absolutely love him for being the deadpan snarker straight man to Eusine’s . . . Eusine. But even as he is a deadpan snarker who legitimately believes Eusine will get himself arrested one day, he still loves Eusine with all his heart and will always bail him out of whatever trouble (or prison) he gets himself into. (He would just rather Eusine not get himself into that trouble / prison in the first place.)

Eusine Minaki --- And of course I can’t mention Morty without mentioning Eusine. Again, I fleshed Eusine out a lot, and bouncing him off Morty was so easy, their banter came so naturally. So much of it was childish bickering despite the two of them being adults, but that’s what happens when you’re childhood best friends. As energetic and ridiculous as Eusine can be at times, however, he has a serious side to him as well that I like, and I took Lyra stealing his dream from him a lot more seriously than the game did. I like to think my version was better, even if it would definitely need a re-write now.

Gladion --- Gladion was a character I knew was going to be a fave from the moment I saw him, and while I still think that his development was rushed and poorly written in-game (and while my version of Gladion is far more temperamental, heh), I still adore him and his incredible theme music oh so much. The way Gladion reacted to the abuse Lusamine doled out on him is very similar to how I’ve reacted to the abuse I’ve gone through in my life, and so I find Gladion to be a pretty relatable character---including and especially when it comes to his scathing sarcasm, because damn. I can in fact be that way at times if someone aggravates me. There have been times when I’ve taken no hostages, I can freely admit that.

N Harmonia --- I love so much about N. He’s such a complex character, and perhaps one of the most complex characters Game Freak has written into their games---which is why it makes me sad that fandom tends to focus on only one or two of his traits and ignore all the rest. N is many things; he’s an older teenager / young adult who was abused and sheltered for pretty much his entire life, but he’s also an older teenager / young adult who was raised to believe that he is a King and a Chosen One and acts accordingly. N is one of those characters that is very difficult to write correctly, but I think he’s brilliant all the same. I love him. (And the fact that he is just as headstrong, blunt, and passionate as Lea makes them delightful to bounce off one another, let me tell you.)

Brendan James Anderson --- Brendan, son of Petalburg City��s Gym Leader Norman, is as surly and salty as they come, and I love him for it. He’s absolutely that moody teenager who is salty about anything and everything, and while some of his woes are understandable (e.g. he didn’t want to move to Hoenn, he’s salty at his dad for separating from his mom over work, et cetera), the truth is that he will complain endlessly about stupid things as well, and he damn well knows it. He likes writing poetry and reading, which is why he named his mudkip Moby Dick . . . aaand his mudkip appreciates this about as much as you would expect, so. Brendan complains about their vitriolic best buds relationship frequently (especially as Moby, once a swampert, routinely bucks him off mid-Surf and sends him careening into the ocean). I love writing Brendan because, personally, I find the fact that he is perhaps even saltier than the oceans that surround Hoenn to be hilarious. His complaining isn’t whining so much as it is just bitching, and sometimes you just need a salty af protagonist to get you through. (Also, it makes for a nice contrast with his cheerful neighbor, May Birch.)

Iris de Nadder --- A DRAGON PRINCESS, I love Iris, I love her so much, and I wish we got to see more of her in the original Black / White games, though I do love what we do get to see. I love how she protects Bianca after the incident in Castelia City, and though I definitely upped that scene in Reversi (wherein she flat out kicks the shit out of the Plasma grunts assaulting Bianca, mocks them for getting their asses kicked by a twelve-year-old girl, and sends them packing), I do still love what we see originally. I see Iris as being unwilling to take anyone’s shit, but also generally being upbeat and friendly, because honestly, a human’s life is too short to spend being prickly and unpleasant. Dragons? They live ages. But humans? Practically babies from birth to death in a dragon’s eyes. Iris only has a human lifespan, so she’s gonna live it to the fullest and encourage others to do the same. She’ll encourage others to be their best selves while being her best self, and I think that’s awesome.

Karen Noir --- Finally, the last spot will probably have to go to Karen of Johto’s Elite Four. Not only does she spout the truest words in any Pokémon game (that you should battle with the pokémon you like), but I love how I fleshed her out with regards to her relationships with Morty and Eusine. (Basically, she was Morty’s rival in childhood, but Eusine felt that Karen was stealing his BFF, so he and Karen actually have a rivalry in which Karen mostly just makes fun of him and Eusine gets angry, and meanwhile Morty just honestly doesn’t want to know what’s going on, he just wants the yelling to stop.) Plus, I mean, she’s a total badass and has a houndoom named Lilith that can and will fuck everyone up, so. I love her.

This is super long but I always have a lot of Pokémon feelings, so. It’s to be expected, I suppose!!