#there's some impostor syndrome going on feeling like nothing i'm writing is actually making sense or engaging in any way rn

[fuckin-sick-bih]

i hate the days when i desperately want to write but nothing i like comes out of my attempts at writing :( (side note i do make the "just bex talkin" tag so you guys can block it and ignore my rambling in tags if you want my writing but not my bitching lmao)

[wantednuzlocke]

Time to post another retrospective! It's time for Chapter 2

Foreword

This first bit is going to be a bit of a vent so you can skip straight to Meta Stuff if you're not interested in that.

Hoo boy, making it to Pyrite. This is the part where we breached the limit of how far most Colosseum Nuzlockes have gone. It makes sense when thinking about it. Most creators at that point hit that realisation of how much commitment a comic is, and start to drop off for one reason or another. This is also the part where I realised I was really getting into making this comic series. With Phenac taking at least a whole year to draw out I got plenty of time to think and cook up what comes next. And I was finally hitting that point where I started to look forward to continuing through developing this work.

I'm not going to lie, I had been in the trenches prior to this chapter with impostor syndrome looming over me continiously. It wasn't something I would talk about it bothering me in the moment I was experiencing it. It was nobody's business but mine. And I managed to power through the existential crisis because I wanted to tell this story very badly. And usualy I don't notice how much I have been gritting my teeth until the stress has already passed.

Simply put, I do not do well over receiving compliments over things that are outside of my control. It makes me feel like a fraud. And most of the engagement and attention my work received felt more like a result of picking fairly niche media in the Pokémon franchise. And the first bit of engagement I received mainly boiled down to pointing out that it was Pokémon Colosseum. And not much else was said. It gave me no frame of reference on if I was doing well or not. Only that I supposedly struck gold by sheer random luck of picking some untapped goldmine, so I would win no matter what. I actually don't like that. But that's a me problem. I do not want to discourage anyone from leaving their thoughts in a comment. Because that kind of shit is already hard enough to come by as is. And I wish it became a bit more common behavior since it's something that can really drive creators forward to want to continue to make more stuff.

Breaking away from the original writing of Pokémon Colosseum a bit more was one of the scarier choices I ended up making. I knew the time would eventually come for it. And I knew that the nuzlocke communtiy would accept it since many other nuzlockes do it. And I love to make things really my own. But I was also low-key expecting the same backlash most of those comics get outside of nuzlocke community circles. I've been a long-time lurker in the community. I've seen plenty of "...well actually..." and "that's not how the game's plot goes" comments on other comic runs. Heck, i've seen someone start a wholeass rant of several paragraphs on someones work because they didn't like how someone portrayed a Raichu's personality.

I knew nothing about the Orre fandom. But what I did know is that it was very beloved by those who were a fan of it. I had no idea how they would react to some rando coming in completely taking apart their beloved game and turn it into something unrecognisable. Heck, Wes seemed like the type of protagonist that a lot of guys would relate to and place their entire identity on. That it would get fans up in arms and call me out for... Replacing a badass man with a woman just to be woke or whatever. Taking the powerfantasy away so to speak.

Thing is, I actually heard nothing from the Orre fandom. Pretty much. It's not like I interacted with them. So it was just the nuzlocke community. And they were on board with what I put on the table. The only way I eventually ended up hearing from them, was because I reached out myself eventually. Mostly because of the anniversary zine. And turns out it's actually a pretty cool and chill community.

Meta Stuff

So where Phenac City you'll basically breeze through the battles like it's nothing... Pyrite hits you like a sledgehammer with a wake-up slamdunk. If you thought you were going to have an easy time Nuzlocking from now on, you're dead wrong. The kiddie gloves are off and on go the spiked brass knuckles.

Almost every person you talk to in this town will directly fling you into battle. And the majority of them have Shadow Pokémon for you to capture. And just entering a random building is enough to reset the trainers so you can battle them again.

This is the part where you can finally start grinding in case the battles get too difficult. The catch is... The Shadow Pokémon cannot level up... So to get stronger this early in, you're still dependent on your Espeon and Umbreon pulling most of the weight.

So my strategy for Pyrite Town was to grind out the duel square trainers until all my Shadow Pokémon had their heart gauge depleted. Starting the battle with them, but then switching to the eevees to sneak in some experience for them to level up a fair bit.

That said, I was both stupid, and also unlucky as soon as I stepped foot in this town. I lost the Shadow Makuhita and Quilava instantly. One to type advantage, one to a critical hit hitting harder than I had anticipated. Double battles still manage to make me sometimes lapse and not take all pokémon on the field in account. But some of these Pokémon just hit like a truck for no good reason..

Pyrite Colosseum was easy enough. It's supposed to be quite the gauntlet as you don't get breaks between battles, and are locked into the team setup you enter the arena with. But yeah... Free experience for Espeon and Umbreon. And TM Toxic attained, which I directly put onto Zerda. With his bulk and his likelihood of being on the battle field for most of the game. I figured it be a good pick to make the shadow pokémon catching easier besides relying on sleep to hit...

And at that point we aren't done with Pyrite Town yet. There is still a whole dungeon full of trainers to go through, and even more Shadow Pokémon to catch. It went alright until I got on the roof of the pyrite building...

Dude. why. ù_ú

You won't believe how much text I wrote before continuing the battle and picking the next pokémon.

I used the now empty slot to purify the remaining Shadow Pokémon while on the way to Miror B. The grind was getting a tad too long.

Miror B isn't as much of a threat, his AI is kinda predictable, considering all his Ludicolos will hurry with using Rain Dance to keep the rain going whenever it's not raining. AND he brings four of the same Pokémon into a fight where you have been showered with several Flying Type pokémon to clean them up. So between intervals you get a free turn to destroy as many Ludicolo as you can.

Though I can imagine anyone who isn't familiar with Pokémon would've been bullied very badly by the follow up Shadow Sudowoodo. That's a tree. No it's not. It's a rock. It directly counters all the precious Flying-Type pokémon you brought along to defeat his Ludicolo's. Not my problem tho. I know exactly what you are. So Miror B becomes so much less of a threat because of that surprise element failing on me. But I understand for some people in childhood Miror B. was a terrible roadblock to deal with.

Plot Planning

Considering what happened in gameplay, this was going to be the first chapter I was fully looking forward to finally getting into. Since it was such a major event. I remember looking at my gameplay notes for Pyrite, looking through the big wall of text when I just started making this comic and going "Yeah... This comic is 18+ rated now if I bring this to fruition.".

Pyrite Town is frankly probably one of the more difficult arcs to write when it comes to pacing. This is noticeable if you have played the games enough to remember that this arc is basically the long haul of the game. Theres 14 shadow pokémon to catch, even more trainers to battle, and on top of that, a lot of back and forthing to the construction lot.

Nuzlockes tend to put a lot of emphasis on every catch you run into. It's part of the attachment process. But fourteen catches in one single chapter? That's going to be hell if you're going to highlight every single one of them. And I had to highlight three losses and one failed capture on top of that as well? Dude, I was still trying to keep each arc no bigger than 40 pages at this point, but this would turn Pyrite into one hella long slog.

Putting the sheer amount of Pokémon and battles aside, there is still a story to tell. There is a lot in Pyrite to do, there are A LOT of noteable side characters, a whole lot of moving parts, a backtracking segment. And there also was plenty of stuff to make fun of. Like, for instance... Silva knocked out two guys and stole a GIANT. SOLID. METAL. GEAR!!?!? The diameter of that thing surpassed his height! That thing gotta be HEAVY! And he hauled that stupid thing all the way across the desert to the construction site. That man can LIFT. Not to mention the Protagonist finding it and casually putting it in his inventory, which I can only imagine as him shoving it in his coat, since he got no bag. Meanwhile Silva can't even make a meaningful dent in stopping Cipher through sheer strength alone, while Duking is not doing anything because of the hostage situation. Where is the line? How strong does Duking have to be in comparison?

Adding onto that... NOBODY knows Wes. Literally NOBODY. Only Team Snagem acknowledged his existence. He was the best snagger on the team they all acknowledge that. Yet no one else knows his face, and assumes he's a stranger visiting the region. He must've been really good at going under the radar. But how in the hell??? Did literally nobody ever see Wes perform a snag on their pokémon?

In the end I ended up omitting a lot of the moving parts of the Pyrite arc. Not neccessarily because I wanted to. But because it became really hard to fit in both the storybeats of the original story, while also putting in the story bits I wanted to fit in. I guess there was a certain drive to keep the pace appropriate. The backtracking isn't as bad when you're playing the game. It usually boiled down to simple fetch quests and triggering certain event flags to make the plot continue its course barely any battling evolved in that part. It could work in a comic setting, or even in writing. But I just really wanted to get moving and not get stuck fussing over the details too much.

My first script contained actually everything I just covered. But I ended up discarding a whole lot. There was a scene where Yume and Chou would make a stop in the desert to talk and get some lore exposure in. But I managed to compress that down to them continuing to ride until they hit Pyrite town and doing some walking and talking. I had initially written it before I was done with Phenac City. And I realised following the original plot as is would not make it a good one. I would continiously end up writing myself in a corner, getting stuck. It was time to take the info pieces I had, and mold them in a way that worked for my own story.

Adding Chou into the story felt like a mistake. I wouldn't have had any of these problems if it was just Yume doing her thing. I wouldn't have to struggle keeping the band together while there was this piece that was actively trying to not be part of it. But... Chou was already written into the story. There would be no way for me to get her out now unless I retconned it. And I wasn't going to alter the existing content I already posted for the sake of convenience. I was going to work with the pieces I added to the board and make it good.

And having Chou be there isn't a bad thing. She's a newcomer to Orre, and therefore a perfect piece to naturally explain the workings of the region. Yume knows the region thoroughly, so it wouldn't make sense to have everyone explain anything to her. Or if they would even try she would shut them up quickly with an "I already know that".

Originally they were both going to be arrested by the cops, since Yume is a wanted criminal. Or people wouldn't conveniently recognise her since her face is obscured on the wanted poster. But then I realised I could use this oppurtunity to progress the plot without needing to detail everything. Yume could just go offscreen and capture the entire cast while Chou was going to give us a look into some more lore.

I also still needed an origin wherever the heck Yume came from she had to live somewhere before getting on board with Team Snagem. Being on Team Snagem from the start in childhood was uh... Nope... Absolutely not... I can see it work for Wes. But... A little girl being part of one of the scariest crime gangs in Orre, which has no moral compass and do whatever the fuck they want? No fucking way she would've developed the temperament and autonomy she has as of right now. And that's not an implication I wanted to dive into. I had already enstablished Cipher didn't know who she was, so that was off the table as well. It was clear she wasn't from Phenac. Those people are too refined when it comes to her attitude, and also, they did not recognise her either. Mt. Battle isn't a settlement. Agate village is a Retirement home. So that leaves Pyrite Town, and the Under. If she was from the Under that would mean she always knew that place existed and would probably have confronted that place right away during the Pyrite arc. So that leaves Pyrite Town as Yume's original residence.

It was easy enough to connect Yume to Duking at that point, considering his house is where the kids of the town have their hideout. He wouldn't abandon a kid in need of a home. Which he would come to regret soon after. But he would also have enough of a bias to not directly want to outright punish her for being a criminal, the same way he treats the other criminals in town. And also being more opposed to getting her lynched for her misdeeds. It would at least mean most people would recognise her on sight and know she is trouble and there was a reason for the cops in town to immediately attempt to arrest her and anyone associated with her.

By this time I had also to turn into the mystery genre, inspired by Penumbra, A Pokémon moon Nuzlocke by Twisted-Eerie. I've been starting to sprinkle some secret hints already in Phenac's Arc for readers to find out ahead of time where the plot was headed and Yume's true origins were at. Because surely, she existed before Duking randomly picked her up from the desert. But most of the tidbits tend to get overlooked or forgotten. I don't blame anyone for that. It's hard to figure out what is actually relevant when you do not know where the story is going, especially on a first read. But I suppose it makes it also extra fun for potential rereaders to find details. Like "Holy shit, it was there all along."

With Duking being her adoptive parental figure it also effectively became easier to tie Yume into the story more. First of all, Silva, being Dukings right-hand man, very vigilante-oriented with how much he takes matters into his own hands to try and do what he thinks is right. A polar opposite to the criminal Yume is. So obviously they would have bad blood with a lot of bad history. A consistent fight of 'true justice' against someone being aboslutely fed up with the others 'holier than thou' attitude. Absolute childhood enemies that would never get along. Easy dynamic to bounce off of.

And then there is Plusle. Dukings cherished pet pokémon. In the game no more than a simple plot device that kept Duking in line when he could've easily nipped in the bud that was Cipher. It's very low level and I didn't consider using it at all, its ability would never be useful, and it would be a nightmare to train safely in Colosseum with how underlevelled it was. Duking also parts far too willingly with his precious Plusle right after the hostage situation letting it join the protaginists in the fray. It would also be awkward if it just outright died after being entrusted to you, considering this is a nuzlocke.

That said, it was still an important pokémon in Yume's life. It's someone she grew up along with if she had been with Duking. And some crack idea spawned real late in. What if it was a Service Pokémon? Yume had been a problem child from the beginning with aggression issues, stemmed from what clearly was emotional trauma. It also was a funny joke to me. Plusle brings positive energy. ... hehehehehehe... ôwô

Setting all this up made it so much easier to tackle the story-telling now. Everything started to fall into place so much easier.

Then we get to the part I was looking forward to... And realised... This is unneccessarily violent and kind of out of place considering the low intensity of the rest of the story I had initially planned was. I also had no experience drawing gore. I could make the decision to go with it and make it as graphic and violent as I had initially planned. But... I saw no point in doing that. It would add shock value. But... I don't really consider that a good thing personally. Especially since I considered it would be a one-off thing. It's what I made the comic 18+ for. It wasn't something I was fully behind myself, and I knew that if I went in this way, it would drive up the inaccessibility to read the comic. I didn't think it was worth doing that for this one scene. Especially when you can simply hint at it happening, without needing to show it.

Which brought me to the next hurdle... Tackling the issue of the consequences of mass murder. If I was going to follow the rules I enstabished on how Shadow Pokémon worked. Then Yume's fate at the end of the arc would be at the mercy of the crowd. She's lucky enough that there were barely any witnesses left that could tell exactly what happened on the same day she got caught. By all means and the laws of the region... Yume would be executed. So I needed to come up with a very good reason for it to at least be delayed for the forseeable future, and get her out of there on the way to the next plot point, Agate Village.

While I had in mind that Proton was originally trained by Eagun and sent over to keep Yume in check. Duking simply calling him for advice still wouldn't cut as an excuse to get her specifically there. She still killed a lot of people. It's not enough. In order to refresh my memory on how the game decided to point you into that direction I decided to rewatch the gameplay footage and had completely forgotten about another key character from Pyrite. Lady Fateen.

Okay, not so much forgotten. But rather. I tend to pretend Fortunetellers in video games do not exist. Especially when I am playing for the very first time. It stems mainly from the point that in most older video games, they are supposed to be the hint-system in older video games. An in universe guide that tells you what you should be doing next to keep the game going. I figured Fateen fulfilled the same role in Colosseum, so I actively went out of my way to ignore her as much as possible because I like to figure problems out on my own. So I think I ended up ejecting her from my memory altogether... But it turns out she doesn't even have this role in the game at all.

She's actually the one coming out of her house, to stop you briefly from leaving Pyrite to point you towards Agate Village next. I initially thought Rui was the one to point you in that direction, considering her connection to Eagun as his granddaughter. But Rui was replaced by a foreigner with no ties to Orre.

But all that said, she is the actual most respected authority in Pyrite Town no one would dare go against her advice since she's never been wrong before. And therefore she is the perfect key to getting Yume out of Pyrite, with her head still connected to her torso. Yay ~

Artistic Journey

CSP is back Babyyy ~ now with the full version. I've been getting into the swing of uisng 3d models to get posing just right. Though I have been flipflopping between sketching the characters and using the models. Also gotten a lot more comfortable with not drawing entire environmental backgrounds for every panel, but instead switching to mood voids. It's putting less strain on drawing at least.

Personally I do not feel like I improved much visually speaking. Drawing over 3d models was also something my mindset had to get over. It felt like cheating. But they were literally blank dolls, I still had to draw the actual character over it. Efficiency was definitely increasing however. Been looking into assets that make it easier to work in finer details with less work.

Drawing battle choreography was still a struggle, as this comic is the first one where I earnestly started drawing out fights. And it didn't really help when my script would just default to [insert battle choreography here] thanks past me who wrote the script. That is so helpful. uwu;;

I've at least been combining dialogue during battles so narration can go on during battles without stopping the flow too much. They kinda felt like seperate blocks before this that would just drive the story to a halt for a bit.

That's all for the chapter 2 retrospective, until next time ~

[junebugwriter]

Impostor I

I've got the impostor syndrome bad tonight.

I wrote about it some on twitter, but I'll talk about it here some too. This space tends to be a bit easier for me to get complex thoughts out anyways, because longer form works better for my brain sometimes.

I have a lot of moments feeling like an impostor when it comes to being trans. I used to feel like I was an impostor just for being an academic, but writing a dissertation flipped a switch in my brain I think, saying "ah, yes, I am actually writing a book now as a scholar, I have Made It." But now, my insecurity is seizing upon being trans.

I don't feel like I'm "trans enough." And I know it's not exactly breaking new ground. Society tells me I'm a guy. My upbringing tells me I'm a guy. My body looks like a guy's body. I'm hairy, large, and overall have masculine features. But there's a lot of my body that's not masculine at all.

Take, for instance, breasts. I have them! I've had them since I was a little kid, because I've always been a bit fat. I've actually been quite sensitive about the fact I had them, because I was operating with the understanding that I Am Male and Male Manly Men do not have Breasts, they have Pecs. So I'd try to flatten them, I'd work out a lot, but nothing ever got rid of them, so I came to somewhat accept them. I even kind of got to like them, their feel, etc. It wasn't """manly""", but who cares about that, I have them, and I had to deal with that.

Also, my hips! I've got sort of a womanish waist. And I like my waist! It suits me, and that's great. Not """manly""", but it's cool, it's BONE STRUCTURE, what am I going to do about that? So I grew to accept it, and now I kind of like it!

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say I might maybe produce more estrogen in my body than a """normal""" male body, but I won't know until my doc screens me for HRT. I'll put a pin in that, but it's something I think about!

But more than anything, in my brain, I *feel* like a I should be a woman. I identify more with women than with men, in general. I like playing female characters in games, and enjoy movies with more well-rounded and developed female characters. When it comes to attributes and behavioral trends, my behavior makes a lot more sense if I was a woman. I'm more sensitive, more empathetic in general, more submissive and accommodating. And yes, I do realize these are BROAD STEREOTYPES and are anything but scientific, or accurate. Yet I can't shake the feeling... I was meant to be a woman.

I feel that way. It's my brain. It's my heart. And I can't shake it.

But I still look and present as a man in my day-to-day. I'm not out at work. I hope, once I go on HRT and begin changing more of my appearance, the outside of my body will begin to match my insides. But I still struggle with feeling trans ENOUGH.

I just went on a whole ass description of how my brain thinks! And I still! Can't! Shake! The feeling i'm faking it!

What does a bitch have to do to feel like they are deserving of being trans?? Why can't I feel valid in my identity!? All I do is question, and self-analyze, and wonder, and postulate. (I'm a goddang theologian, it's what I do best.) But on and on, I keep circling. Yes. I am a woman. I am trans.

BUT AM I??

aaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAA

It's so frustrating. It's illogical. I want to Spock my way to certainty in my gender identity. I want a math equation to settle the questions in my brain, the feelings of my heart. But life isn't like that. I've got to Kirk it out, and act with what's not only logical, but emotionally true as well.

I just... wish I could feel validation without agonizing all the time.