#two different nuzlockes

[quirkle2]

ms paint with mouse time

[origamimissingno]

Its crazy that someone in real life asked me why I'd side with Lily on anything and why I don't think mikaila isn't being manipulated bc, and this coworker was at my school when my crazy ex told people about my abuse as if it was some gotcha, I "was traumatized by a man like him"

First, that's fucking transphobic and saying that when you have multiple trans coworkers, two of which are trans women like wtf mate

Second, I wanna know how the fuck this coworker found out I watch Lily's stuff, I've been watching almost exclusively nuzlocke content on my lunch break at work

And third, my brothers abuse if compared to anything with Lily would be what Courtney did to Lily if she had gotten much more physical and was four years older

I don't see some abuser when I see Lily, I see someone who's been through shit and just wants to push that shit away and work on it in therapy but dumbasses can't leave her alone either about her abuser. I've literally watched this shit go down for years, I started watching early in her MLP years, all I've ever seen her as in regards to that shit is "someone else like me", if 15 yrs old me who hated the world could understand that, you'd think grown ass adults could too.

But no

You guys can't imagine someone having a differing opinion about stupid shit and like vultures flock to find any reason to hate her even if it's blatantly lies.

God damnit I can't even escape it in my shitty Walmart job would you ghouls shut the fuck up already

Edit: sorry Mikaila, used the tagging feature to make sure I spelt your name right didn't mean to actually tag you

[critterbitter]

Asks and responses under cut!

First to note! THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH FOR THESE ASKS. I REALLY APPRECIATE YALL. That aside, lemme get cracking! @drakeling7413 AWE MAN THANK YOU! I just started playing B2 with a friend (we're... not doing a nuzlocke anymore because we both got full team wiped at Clay's gym. That exadrill's built different man.) But I'm glad to bring back some of that whimsey! @bluemimikyu As an eel defender I am VERY glad to hear that! Good luck with tynamo though, they evolve at a disgustingly high level and they're... well, I don't want to say weak but they're a bit difficult to use against anybody not water or flying, from personal experience. (I love eelektross though. Levitate my beloved...) @ashnesspokemon ADLSKJFLKSDJ THANK YOU!!! I have SO many thoughts about them. We've seen them as rat children. We've seen them as sad old men. Today, I offer you-- gangly teenagers interning at Gear Station and Scheming in the meantime. (Plus elesa! The more I draw her the more I love her, ah... I've always been a sucker for trios. ((looks dead eyed at botw and hollow knight))). I do intend to draw them older later on, but that's a timeline I will Not Nail Down anytime soon hehe. @64s-art-blog Emmet has eel rights, Ingo has lamp rights. (But you're right. He should have thrown eelekrik. The comedic apparel would have been incredible.) @aroacepokefan First of all (points at your user name) AYYY. (Points at this characterization of Ingo). AYYY??? Second of all, thank you I LOVE moles and drillbur's perfect. @asperanna Oh boY OH BOY OKAY SO. I am prrrrobably not gonna draw anymore conventional starters AU cause I have a lot of wips I have to handle of the current comics, BUT Ingo would have a unovan samurott. and then when he gets heebie jeebied into hisui, he would have a HISUIAN Samurrott. And then when the two samurotts meet, they would be like the spiderman pointing meme. But because this is also a sandbox, if you ever wanna run with the hisuian samurott idea please go for it! Free real estate, just remember to credit so I can sneak in and spectate the art. @submasfan SLJLDSFJSLDK TY!!!! I am definitely gonna have to slow down at somepoint so I can work on commissions again (ah... maybe I should open a patreon... to feed myself. hmm.) BUT I APPRECIATE THE EXCITEMENT. The submas brain is real. @magicfeatherbean4 (sweats) This is where I tell you they only appear for like... five lines. BUT YOU SHOULD PLAY BW! I miss the 2d pokemon aesthetic, and BW nails that in the head. ((Its okay we can sit on the sidelines and admire the muppet men do their daily commute within the depths of the train.)) @rudeboimonster I'm so glad you caught the stims! Character consistency is an important rule I hold close to my heart, so seeing people notice the little details I add makes me grin like a loon.

[sleepy-twinleaf]

POKEDDEXY 3: DRAGON - No. 149 & No. 706 ( + No.148 )

this took so long because i decided it would be a great idea to draw not one but TWO AND 1/8 OF A CHARACTER... Originally I was planning on just redesigning my old dragonite oc, but goomy is one of my favorite pokemon, soo... I wanted to represent it somehow since it's not on my list for the following days. You may recognize the little headshot as my dragon entry from last year!

more info/old art for comparison under the cut!

WEWWWWW old art. Originally Oasis was my 'Champion Lance' for a pokemon HGSS nuzlocke run I did WAYYY back then, you can even see Ancheim (the dragonair/dratini) there too! He was the league champion and the dragonair is younger brother by several years.

Revamped, I imagine Oasis to still be part of a champion team/have held the title at some point, along with the Mirage (the goodra), who's his teammate, and yknow... History would call them ""close friends"". Oasis is kind of a goofball and battle junkie, whereas his younger brother and his totally-not-partner are more stoic and grumpy.

tbh if not for the fact this was a redesign I would've gone a different direction with the clothing, but decided I wanted to stick to the style I already chose out long ago <:D

[pokemonfangame]

Pokémon: Hollow Woods

Welcome to Oblar, a Pokémon region split between two factions. Your mother, the leader of the Lavender Faction, tasks you with researching Oblar's unique Pokémon species. But you find much more: an ancient and mysterious Pokémon, an organization with questionable motives, tales from Oblar's past, and plenty of intrigue... ...all centered around Oblar's Great Forest, where a powerful force is said to lurk.

This game aims to provide the nostalgiac feel of a Gen IV Pokémon game while refreshing some of the standard plot formula. You'll find gym puzzles and badges, a Pokémon professor, a rival, and other callbacks to canon Pokémon plots. At the same time, the game adds many new features (described below) and incentives for exploration, from sidequests with rare rewards to regional Pokémon that can only be found via thorough gameplay. It also asks new questions about the Pokémon world and its governance. Hopefully, this game will echo whatever drove you to play Pokémon games in the first place while giving you plenty of new content to enjoy!

Features:

A carefully curated regional Pokédex, featuring Pokémon and moves from the first 8 generations.​

A balanced experience crafted by a team of competitive Pokémon players. Though this is by no means a "kaizo" game, it should be difficult enough to provide some challenge to even experienced players.​

37 regional forms of existing Pokémon currently obtainable, with more planned for future releases.​

39 formal side quests, plus a variety of smaller content unlockable through player interaction.​

"Secret Spots" - areas accessible with a special item that contain rare Pokémon and/or items.​

"Super trainers" - extra-challenging trainers that will challenge you only if you battle every other trainer on a route.​

A variety of new game options, including Nuzlocke mode and level caps for those that want a difficult experience, as well as infinite rare candies and autoheal for those that want a more casual playthrough.​

A custom soundtrack featuring remixed versions of existing Pokémon tracks, with more to come in future updates!​

Exp. Share options - experience sharing can be disabled entirely, enabled from the Bag to give Exp. to all Pokémon, or given to one specific Pokémon to share Exp. with just that Pokémon.​

In-game time cycles with no relation to real time, enabling the player to find different Pokémon available only at certain times of day.​

Some of your favorite characters from canon Pokémon games have cameo appearances.​

[teacasket]

psychic lover

genre: fluff au: gamer au, streamer au warnings: none word count: 0.3k   pairing: gn!reader x han jisung song: psychic lover by itzy

SO, I CAN READ YOUR MIND, NO LIE.

Judging from the way his eyes flicker back and forth from his monitor to your lips, Jisung wants to kiss you. The camera directed as his face is the only reason why he won’t.

Twitch streamer J1SUNG is a lot of things—loud, boisterous, occasionally smart—but openly affectionate with his partner is not one of them. It has been two years since you’ve made your first appearance on his stream, yet Jisung is rarely romantic with you. Despite your constant presence, the closest moment Chat has ever witnessed is him saying to you, “God, you’re a genius.”

In his defense, he’s usually too preoccupied with his hardcore Nuzlocke challenges to flirt with you, and you’re usually too busy pretending to work on your dissertation to pay attention to him. However, today is different since you have opted to take a break from writing. You watch him play Pokémon Emerald, convince him to make bad choices for entertainment, and gloat when your bad choices turn out to be good ones.

Which brings us to his Jisung’s current predicament.

He wants to kiss you because you were right that his Alakazam can take the hit, and now he can sweep the rest of the team.

“See? I knew it!” you say. Chat echoes your sentiments, spamming emotes and “CALCULATED,” as is tradition whenever your decisions pay off.

“Yeah, of course you did.”

“You know what else I know?”

“Everything” is the typical punchline, so Jisung answers accordingly, half sighing as he recalls all of the other times you were right. You’ll never let him forget the run where he accidentally killed his Ralts encounter.

Rather than smugly agreeing, you lean over and kiss him, making sure to block the camera with your hand. When you pull away, he’s bright red.

“What was that?” he stammers. He covers his face with two hands, peeking through his fingers to read the chat. As he does so, he sinks further out of the camera’s view.

You smile and wrap your arms around his shoulders. “I know everything, remember?”

I CAN BE YOUR PSYCHIC LOVER.

[moonglide]

pokemon echoes of wisdom hours 2 & 3

-ok first i just want to say two things

-1. that mention of 'hopefully my nuzlocke experience will help' two posts ago was supposed to be a joke. Why is it accurate. This game is actually pokemon. I am seeing a moblin and saying, oh that's a fighting type, time to send out the flying type keese! I'm seeing deku babas and sending the fire candle guys because fire > grass.

-2. some people are complaining that you can't get up close and personal as zelda and I'm like. that's not a bad thing. the levels of strategy i have to employ is insane. I feel so clever. Zelda feels different to play than link does, and I think that's a good thing. I'm not playing a linkle game, I'm playing a zelda game.

spoilers below the cut, i guess. i hope i do it right.

--got the rupees for the heart piece

-went in caves and got like six different monsters. flame candle is my fave so far.

-went into the still world. the music is creepy. i hate it. 10/10.

-i was not expecting a first dungeon this early but I'm not complaining

-god these puzzles are fun.

-dark link was a fun challenge. my initial plan was to use a darknut to distract him and then set him on fire, but spamming ropes ended up working better.

-ropes are actually really useful because even though they die in one hit, they attack really quickly and you can summon a ton of them

-it's really fun to distract some strong foe with like three monsters and then take a nap to restore health

-oh also i figured out bed strats. when you first enter a bed, you gain a half heart after around three seconds, and each succesive heart takes about five. If you get out and sleep again after getting your first half heart, it goes quicker.

-ohhh i can use keese to hit the rock guy's weak point

-damn that's a lot of tris

-excuse me??? they use the echo ability to restore the land and people??? doesn't that mean that the restored people are just copies???

-hold up the corrupted people are just copies too. is there an evil tri loose?

-wait, ganon came out of the rift, which means that the ganon from before might've just been a clone, and real ganon got rifted. hmmmmm

-no, lefte, i don't want to travel together. let me ignore the plot minister lefte. please. lefte.

-ok so you can upgrade the sword with impa's brother. okay.

-oh also hold on what the fuck impa is the only one that can't see tri. I think she's been rifted, and she only helped us with the guards to gain our trust to pull a totk puppet zelda on us

-and also i got a bottle earlier and the fairies just jump into it. which means that fairies in bottles aren't being captured, they just like to be in bottles. fairies are hermit crabs. change my mind.

-got some water types and met the great fairy.

-i tried to run away from the plot. saw a sign leading to seasyde village. went there. found plot. I hate how well this game is railroading me without my realizing. i am playing checkers and nintendo is playing six-dimensional chess.

-got some shark guy, is very strong. best water type.

-oh god zora cove is MASSIVE. even bigger than lake hylia. god i hope he hydrology in this game makes more sense than in totk and botw.

-you can stack octorocks. you all need to know that.

-delivering fish. found a moblin evolution. killed it. absorbed its essence. mine.

-favorite pokemon monster: ropes are probably the most useful, but ignacio or whatever its name is is my favorite. he's just a destructive little guy

[theresattrpgforthat]

my girlfriend really wants a game that is "crunchy" about how you build a whole character, ie. having "mechanics" for the fantasy of said characters. an example would be spheres for pathfinder or 5e. we're just looking for other ideas! we both love pbta and we both love 5e, but sometimes you want to chew on the system a little.

THEME: Mechanically Dense Characters

Alright, so let’s see what I can recommend that I haven’t recommended a lot yet. I’m going to try and approach this with a few different genres, as well as a few different systems. There will also be links to related rec posts at the end!

Into the Black, by Monkey’s Paw Games.

INTO THE BLACK is a sci-fi roleplaying game where one or more players take on the role of Management and presents a futuristic universe of corporate oppression and class warfare, while others take on the role of Freelancers and create characters to struggle and survive in that universe. Players must navigate and explore a strange and wondrous galaxy while deeply indebted to an interstellar corporation. Life among the stars, then, is about treading the razor's edge of struggling for survival and finding joy and love where one can.

Into the Black is built on the Into the Odd rules system, created by Chris McDowell. This places it into the OSR family of games. Now, OSR games are typically pretty lethal at low levels, and Into the Black is no different, but I know that 5E has the same kind of problem, to the point that many people will skip first level altogether.

In Into the Black, your character starts with an occupation, a background, randomly rolled abilities, and some gear. Once you advance to your first level, you take one of two classes, and customize from there. Technicians learn new occupations while Specialists take on new Kinesis Abilities, which are paranormal abilities that fit the space setting. You’ll chew through characters pretty quickly here, but I think that finding a character that does survive past the first few levels might be akin to a Nuzlocke run in a Pokemon game - you care a lot about the person who survives past a certain point, and your investment will help you generate this character’s thoughts, feelings and reactions in the game.

Gubat Banwa, by Makapatag.

GUBAT BANWA is a Martial Arts Tactics and War Drama Tabletop RPG where you play as martial artists poised to change the world: Kadungganan: the cavalry, the wandering swordsmen, the tide turners, the knights-errant, the ones to call in darkest night in a world inspired and centering Southeast Asian folklore.

Witness, grand warriors, honorable gallants that trudge and toil under kings and haloes. Witness, KADUNGGANAN, that refulgent name. That blasted name: WITNESS NOW. The end of days is upon us: and the new world MUST BE BORN. Bear your blades, incant your magicks. Cut open your tomorrow from the womb of violence. Inscribe your name upon the very akasha of this world. 

There are plenty of mechanics to immerse yourself in when it comes to the Kadungganan of Gubat Banwa. You have a homeland, a social class, defining life events, a profession, a religion, and a specialization. These choices give you pieces of your backstory, but they also give you skills. You’ll also choose a Discipline, a martial art that your character is currently practising, which defines your character’s philosophy and the way they carry themself into battle. Various cultures have collections of different disciplines, with each flavour receiving special abilities, as well as thematic advice on how they present themselves in battle. If you like games that give you extremely cool abilities and badass weaponry, and tie everything in your character to integral pieces of the setting, then Gubat Banwa is for you.

Neon Nights, by EfanGamez.

In Jeriko City, everybody wants to be somebody. Who do you wanna be?

Neon Nights is a cyberpunk/dystopian tabletop RPG set on Earth after a nuclear war devastated the entire planet. After hundreds of years of thousands of people roaming the desolate, irradiated Great Wastes, megacities emerged from the dust of deserts. Where there was once crumbling roads and dancing dust devils now stand skyscrapers towering over hundreds of thousands of roaming pedestrians walking the streets of Jeriko City, located on the East Coast of the once powerful United States of America.

Neon Nights uses a point-buy system to increase parts of your character sheet as you like, which gives you a lot of flexibility when cobbling together a concept. You use points to increase traits, which seem to affect your rolls, perks, which are special abilities used in specific situations, and World Stats, which determine how your character is seen by the rest of the world. How famous are you? How feared? How much respect are you granted? At character creation this may be a guide for the GM as to how your character is received by different elements of society. And these arenas will change depending on what you do in the game. You’ll also choose Occupations which give you pre-determined modifiers and skills that make your character unique. Finally, there’s your gear! Biotech, consumables, and weapons all give your character tools to use in whatever situations you find yourselves in.

Mutants in the Now, by Julian Kay.

In the ‘80s and ‘90s, they ruled the streets, kick-flipping off of villainous faces and slipping into the shadows. Then, they vanished from the world of tabletop gaming.

But they’re back. And ready to KICK BUTT.

Mutants in the Now is a retromodern retake on the mutant animal role-playing games long past and left behind by licensing. Mutants fight to survive, thrive, and make the world better for themselves and humanity.

If you want unlimited options, Mutants in the Now has options. Over 130 animal species and over 200 mutation traits are in the basic book, along with fourteen combat styles, psionic powers, and detailed rules about combat, allies, villains, and more. You can roll randomly for your animal, and spend points to improve them via mutations, combat styles etc.

There’s a lot of pieces that you can look at and then generate a backstory based off of the character you’ve created, and the setting is high action, Saturday-morning-cartoon in theme, but the details are up to your play group. If you like limitless possibilities for character creation, you should check out Mutants in the Now (and it’s expansion, Mutants in the Next!)

Other Posts To Check Out

All The Dice

Branching Out From D&D

Character Customization

Echoes of D&D

Tactical Combat

Rules-Lite Systems with Classes

[loupy-mongoose]

Different stage? Seems like you've redesigned Jamie a bit. Care to share?

Hoo boy...

Ready for a mouthful?

This "different stage" is the very earliest draft of Jamie's story. Before Ash Heart, I think even before Clover were a part of it. I personally call it the "Cringe beginning", but I understand that people are trying to phase out that kind of thinking, so I shall instead take it for what it is; the seed buried underground that has blossomed into what it is today.

So, originally, Jamie was my Trainersona, and as such her name took after my handle; she was Jamie Wolf instead of Jamie Wild, and went by Wolf. (I don't think "Jamie" was even part of her name yet, actually.)

In the ollllldest reaches of the beginning, it was just Jamie--or Wolf--and her brother Jordan. I believe they were living in Cerulean City, and for some reason Mewtwo turned Jamie into a Mightyena. ('Cause that was THE wolf-mon to me at the time, I don't think I knew they were actually hyenas yet.) And then somehow, she turned back to a human but was more of a were-creature, able to switch between the two. If I remember right, anyway.

Eventually Cody came into the picture, and like today, they were meant to become a couple (and fun fact, the fact that Jamie was my trainersona is important to what their relationship became). Now.... he was eventually turned into a Ninetales. Hence, the name Rennard.

As the story tumbled around in my young little head, things obviously changed. Eventually I changed Jamie's name to Wild, made it so she turned into a Zoroark when I realized her looks matched it. (She actually started out with yellow eyes, and I changed them to blue because A: it looks better with the red; B: because of the newly decided Zoroark thing; and C: because it fit her icy personality.) Later, instead of being a were-Zoroark, I decided she was just part Zoroark. And I completely wiped the Cody turning into a Ninetales thing.

And then I started a Soul Silver Nuzlocke in 2012, and I slotted the characters into it.

According to the original note document, the Nuzlocke story was still vastly different. The notes still have her going by "Wolf", and I see nothing about Rose (Jamie's sister-in-law) at all in them. Cody, still being in the place of Silver, was a lot more like Silver character-wise and was evidently not a major part of the story as he doesn't show up in the notes much after the first battle.

And Pari was going to be Jamie's companion. And was Skylar the Togepi/tic/kiss' daughter. Because Skylar was actually a Mew pretending to be a Togepi. (I actually kinda regret changing that fact. It would be fun to have Sky actually be a Mew. XD Poor Sky got the short end of the character development stick because of that original idea.)

Eventually, the story morphed into what it is today.

I value the old iterations for what they got going, but I'm still very glad that I changed it into what it is before I attempted making it public. ^^

[thecoolerliauditore]

Just curious, when did you start shipping Pearl and Scott? Or at least when you realized you did ship them?

sorry if this is a more pretentious answer than you anticipated anon because this is actually something I had to think about for a bit. Because to answer when I started shipping them, I would first have to define what shipping is, and that was one of the biggest question marks over my head when I entered the fandom as well as when I started doing Scott/Pearl stuff.

I wouldn't say I really engaged in fandom prior to life series, the closest thing would be pokemon nuzlocke comics back in the day, so I might've had a somewhat weird impression of "shipping" because to me at the time being a this or that shipper just meant you were obsessed with the dynamic between two (or more) characters to me, that dynamic being romantic is the default expectation but typically it wasn't weird to see "I ship them as best friends" and stuff like that.

So MCYT was kind of a culture shock for me since so much of the fandom is "duo" content, yet "shipping" is treated as its own separate category. Which makes... enough sense I suppose when you factor in CCs and boundary discourse, but it now meant I had to pull apart my own scenarios and imagery in my head to dissect whether it's romantic-coded enough to classify as "ship art" vs "duo" art. Which I now, looking back, would maybe classify as a form of torture albeit very enlightening in terms of seeing how much that label of platonic vs romantic actually influences peoples read of the art. <-- I could go on about this point i.e. how platonic/romantic is just as much of an abstract concept as masculinity/femininity and how this relates to the joelshipping discourse but I'll cut myself off there.

So if we define "ship" as when I first became obsessed with their relationship and daydreaming about different little scenarios for them: Probably around the time I just finished their POVs of last life and immediately afterwards got spoiled on the ending of DL by seeing it out of context in animatics. I was so intrigued at why Scott would do that, and at the time I hadn't know Pearl won DL so I assumed he permakilled them both. It just seemed so harsh and I only got more invested after seeing snippets of Pearl in Bdubs' DL POV which was my first DL POV.

If we define "ship" as when I saw their relationship as being not entirely platonic: when Scott himself called her his "ex-girlfriend" and I was like. 🤨 this is when I started getting headaches over the concept of shipping because "exes" and "soulmates" and "girlfriend" are all very romantically coded terms, but I assumed people would not respond well to Scott/Pearl art being tagged as shipping.

At this time I didn't think Scott actually saw Pearl as anything past a friend, but that he was making things weirder than they had to be because the "soulmate" label was freaking him out (comphet king). Hence romantic tension, but no actual romantic attraction from either of them. (<-- this is still a pretty solid take I think btw maybe more solid than my current take)

Alot of the fanfics in my head at the time revolved around the narrative I saw of m/f best friends torn apart by outsiders forcing a romantic label ("soulmates") onto their relationship. There's was Alot of post-DL Scott apologizes AU stuff in my brain where they hug and promise to be best friends again regardless of what others think. I was so naive then.

This is also what started the. aughh wahhhh wah eughhhh auhhh ahhhhhh!!!!!! feelings when looking at fanart of them. you know the ones.

If we define "ship" as when I decided no actually Scott desires her carnally: SL was a heavy hitter with its Scott/Pearl moments and the insane fucking things that blue mf had to say about Pearl ("you guys are obsessed with Flower Husbands when it's really just been me and Pearl").

Also at the same time I was slipping ever so slightly closer to RPF lite and learnt about Scott's history of ship-baiting with female CCs. I will never unsee that one goddamn thumbnail he made where he photoshopped his face onto. I think Laurens(?) wedding photo to make it look like they got married. Very much the no hetero to Joel's no homo. So that part of me who was just the littlest bit of self-conscious that I would make CC Scott uncomfortable kind of imploded on the spot never to be seen again.

If we define "ship" as actively wanting them to get together and get married and have a happy future together: Never.

My current "ideal happy ending" for them is something clicks in Scott's brain and he has a breakdown and disappears. And the only time he and Pearl see eachother again is just in the street or something years later and they've both moved on with their lives (extra angst points if they both have their own new partners/families) and kind of just. make eye contact for a second and then walk off.

If I let the shippy brain parasitee take me, my "idealer happy ending" would be something clicking in Scott's brain and he has a breakdown To Pearl, apologizes and they have a big mutual crying session before tuckering themselves out and falling asleep together. From then on Scott kind of tries to keep his distance from Pearl, and Pearl eventually tells him she'd forgiven him a long time ago and they learn to be friends for real this time with maybe a little bit of added intimacy thrown in there.

I think this would be wild coming from both of them, especially Scott, and don't think they would do that. But it does make me happy imagining it.

Unfortunately their current situation is um. "whether you want it or not" and "pearl's memory is selective" which is um. hmmmm.

[findingyourrootscomic]

Gameplay Retrospective #3 (Chapters 8-10)

Hello all, and welcome back to Finding Your Roots: Gameplay Retrospectives! FYR is based on a type-restrictive nuzlocke run of Pokemon Omega Ruby. This series is where I describe the events of this nuzlocke run, so you all can get an understanding of how I transform the gameplay into a story! Today, we’ll be covering Chapters 8-10 which ranges from leaving Slateport City to the Team Magma encounter at Meteor Falls. Sorry it’s been so long since the last one, thank you for your patience!

The Current Team

Cedar- Marshtomp

Gender: Female

Met: Route 101, lv 5

Ability: Torrent

Personality: Brave, Good endurance

Shelly- Nincada

Gender: Female

Met: Route 116, lv 6

Ability: Compound Eyes

Personality: Rash, Proud of her power

Brawler- Geodude

Gender: Male

Met: Granite Cave, lv 10

Ability: Sturdy

Personality: Careful, Quick to flee

Nauki- Trapinch

Gender: Male

Met: Granite Cave, lv 1

Ability: Arena Trap

Personality: Jolly, Strong willed

Ember- Numel

Gender: Female

Met: Route 112, lv 14

Ability: Oblivious

Personality: Brave, Somewhat vain

Copper- Slugma

Gender: Male

Met: Fiery Pass, lv 15

Ability: Magma Armor

Personality: Rash, Impetuous and silly

Lockheed- Skarmory

Gender: Male

Met: Route 113, lv 16

Ability: Sturdy

Personality: Modest, Likes to run

Eclipse- Solrock

Gender: Neutral

Met: Meteor Falls, lv 17

Ability: Levitate

Personality: Jolly, Takes plenty of siestas

Tuffy- Numel

Gender: Female

Met: Jagged Pass, lv 21

Ability: Simple

Personality: Hasty, Quick to flee

Gyms Completed

Mauville Gym: Leader Wattson

New Catches

Fiery Pass: Copper (Slugma)

Route 112: Ember (Numel)

Route 113: Lockheed (Skarmory)

Meteor Falls: Eclipse (Solrock)

Jagged Pass: Tuffy (Numel)

Evolutions

None

Deaths

None

Chapter Eight’s gameplay was especially fun to translate into story, since it contained a rival battle AND a gym battle! The chapter picks up at the Pokemon Center visit that I made after winning the prior rival battle against Brendan, who fainted one of my pokemon and reduced the rest to low health. I used repels to make sure we didn’t get jumped by wild pokemon and rushed my poor earth-type babies to the Slateport Pokemon Center to heal them up. Since I had three revives to use on any fainted pokemon I wanted throughout the run, I used the first on Cedar and rezzed her at the Pokemon Center. I stocked up on potions and other heal items, now paranoid that this run may not be as easy as I was hoping. After that, we set off for Mauville.

In the comic, Team Hearth never visits the comic’s stand-in city Mawhill, the lightning elemental capital. This is different from the gameplay, where you are of course unable to skip visiting Mauville since it has the third gym. I made this change since it wouldn’t really make sense for Team Hearth to visit an elemental capital so soon after what happened with Briar. I also just didn’t want to introduce and design a new city, and I figured I could connect the needed gym battle to Mauville by having the gym leaders be Mawhill citizens. It made sense anyway since lightning elementals live there, and the gym is an electric gym! So that fell together pretty nicely.

But before the battle begins, Cedar and Nauki run into Wesen the ralts, the comic stand-in for Wally! I was pretty excited to get to bring Wesen back for this chapter, since he left Cedar so abruptly ages ago in Chapter Two. It was fun to get to pick at the unresolved drama between these two, because Wesen is avoidant to a fault but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel bad about the things he does. Cedar is a fun character to throw at Wesen because her very nature is antithetical to what Wesen expects from the world. These two shake each other up and I love their chemistry.

Cedar and Nauki bring Wesen back to meet their new team, and some aggression from a recently retraumatized Shelly helps to lead both into the upcoming rival battle AND the gym battle. The conflict causes Nauki to run off on his own, which separates him from his older protectors and frees him up to get kidnapped by the lightning elemental gym leaders. This event thus gets Shelly even MORE pissed, and once she identifies Wesen as at fault for Nauki’s kidnapping, all bets are off. Shelly attacks Wesen, violence ensues, and the rival battle commences. Check that one off the list!

In-game, I used Shelly against Wally in Mauville. She was still weak af but was getting a little stronger now that she was getting to higher levels, and bug is good against psychic. Wally only has one ralts here, so it was a pretty easy fight even for Shelly. It went by quickly, and does as well in the comic, though in-comic Shelly is so overcome with raging emotion over the kidnapping that when Cedar intervenes, the explosion targets her instead. Wesen is spared, rival battle is cut off, and Shelly runs away. After the Talk happens, we cut to Nauki with his lightning elemental captors, and the third gym battle is imminent.

Gameplay notes for the Wally battle (Yeah it was literally two turns lol):

Shelly vs ralts- Cut, half yellow.

Teleport, no effect.

Cut KO.

Originally, I was actually going to show the third gym battle in-comic. It would have been Nauki beating the everloving shit out of these lightning elementals to protect his sisters from potential harm, and it was gonna be cathartic and awesome and glorious. I ended up cutting it for time. Chapter Eight was long as fuck even without this battle, so it unfortunately just couldn’t happen. The camera cuts away as Nauki charges in, and by the next time we see him, the cave is reduced to rubble and Watts, Gadget, and Mango are beaten to a pulp. In-game, you’ll never guess what happened…

I swept the gym with Nauki. Wow, how’d you guess? :V

Yeah, it was super easy. Even the battle against Roxanne was harder and I was fighting with a frigging water-type. Once the gym battle was done, we moved onwards towards Hoenn’s arid region! Finally, I had gotten to the good part of the game… THIS NEXT PART OF HOENN IS EARTH-TYPE CENTRAL! I was gonna be getting catches on almost every route, instead of every few levels like the early game! I was so excited to finally fill out the rest of the team, and I caught lots of new pokemon!

My first new catch was on Route 112, where I encountered and caught a female numel that I named Ember. I was so fucking excited because numel is one of my favorite earth-types to raise, and what better place to do so than Hoenn! She was the fifth pokemon to join the team, and then we went to Fiery Pass where I caught a male slugma named Copper. I’d never raised slugma before, so I was pretty interested to see how he would do. Full team!!!

The next step in the game was to head to Fallarbor, and I knew from my research that Route 113 would have a possible skarmory encounter. I really, really wanted skarmory on the team (steel-type, flying-type, cute design, nostalgia for my skarmory from my first Emerald playthrough, GOOD). So once we got there and I encountered and caught the male skarmory Lockheed, I suddenly had choices to make. 7 pokemon, but only 6 slots on the team. It was time to send someone to the PC!

This was the point in the run where I made pretty liberal use of the PC boxes to switch the team around. It was a kinda chaotic time for the team, pokemon would regularly get boxed and come back and get boxed again as more new catches were made. I was trying to balance the team type-wise as well, so that we weren’t leaning too heavily on ground-types versus rock and steel. Cedar and Nauki were the only real permanent fixtures on the team at this point. Lots of switching up!

In Fallarbor, you get a quest to save a kidnapped professor from Team Magma, who dragged him off to Meteor Falls for whatever reason. You also encounter Brendan here, who doesn’t battle you but rather accompanies you to Meteor Falls. I decided to skip this rival encounter because honestly I forgot it even happened. Brendan just leaves very little impression on me as a character lol. I skipped the professor thing, too, because it was just kinda boring and would’ve taken an annoying amount of time to set up, just needlessly extending the comic further. Once Team Hearth made it to the desert, I wanted to send them to Meteor Falls without spending a ton of pages on it. I definitely wanted to include the Team Magma encounter there, since I was taking this opportunity to introduce the comic stand-in for Maxie. I used Team Molten’s strong desire to fight Team Magma as the bridge to get us from one story point to the next as quickly as possible.

I don’t exactly remember how I got the idea to connect Team Molten and Team Magma. The numel catches were definitely part of the inspiration, since Maxie also uses a camerupt as his ace. Bridging different elements of the story also helps to streamline things; Team Molten wanting to fight Team Magma can serve to drag Team Hearth into the conflict as well, even though our main characters don’t yet have a personal stake in the conflict. They will have a personal stake eventually. But for now, their major motivation is to help their new friends out. Thankfully, with Cedar and Nauki’s personalities, it was easy to justify this.

In Meteor Falls, I caught a solrock named Eclipse. I was kinda miffed about this catch I’ll be honest lol, because solrock is a psychic-type but also a physical attacker??? And I don’t even think they learn zen headbutt. So at the time I was just kinda like… Eclipse you’re just a less good Brawler… But I kept them on the team for far longer than I anticipated at the time of capture. So its kinda funny how that all turned out!

Once Eclipse was caught (and introduced in-comic as a character with OCD, as I had promised a friend I would write one), we move on to the Team Magma encounter and introduce Mantle and Tabs (stand-in for Admin Tabitha). In-game, there are three Magma Admins that you regularly fight (or two?? Was it two or three??? I remember Tabitha and Courtney uhh), but in the comic, only one of these admins is still currently with the team. This is to just streamline things more so I don’t have a billion cast members to keep track of. The other Magma admins can be seen in Ember and Tuffy’s flashback, so they are at least referenced. In-comic, Team Magma is here for the same reason as in-game: To steal the meteorite. Team Molten find them first, chaos ensues as the numels three reunite, and then Team Hearth arrives. Molten has outed themselves as being connected to Team Magma. Team Magma successfully steals the meteorite (same as in-game p sure) and leave. I literally don’t remember what they do with it after the fact lol, but I at least remember that much.

Sometime after Meteor Falls, I went to Jagged Pass and caught the second female numel, Tuffy. This was fucking awesome because I love numels and now I had two of them fuck yeah. And thus, we had nine team members in total: Cedar, Nauki, Shelly, Brawler, Ember, Copper, Lockheed, Eclipse, and Tuffy! Earthen party, earthen party! Things were going strong at this point, with lots of fighters to choose from and all sorts of new type coverage. As you can see, in-game Tuffy was the last of these five pokemon to be caught, but she’s introduced as one of the first new catches in-comic. I streamlined all the new catches by introducing three of them (slugma and the two numels) as a unit. I wrote in reasons for why all these new pokemon would start hanging with Team Hearth, though all have yet to officially join the team. I try not to rush new catches onto the team, since it can come off really unnatural. I want to give time for the characters to meet and get used to each other and have them join up when the moment feels right. But for now, all these new pokemon are traveling with Team Hearth!

Aaaand that’s about it! Thanks for reading this gameplay retrospective. Next one will come at the end of Chapter 13. Laters!

[katbites]

here are all of the brave souls that i lost today in my hyper randomized nuzlocke runs that i did today... they will never be forgotten. and always be missed.

i will be streaming this again same time next week. (psst heres the link to my twich) so if you want to see me avenge my friends, stop by and see the bloodshed. hopefully not our blood but one can hope.

under the readmore will be the details behind their deaths.

RUN 1 -----

SPARROW - flying type camerupt. an angelic sweetheart, a comforting presence in the team. by far the most powerful, died due to my own negligence fighting a monk in the sprout tower, along with puddles.

SIR SPIN - rock type tyrogue. died to an aron hitting him with a bonmerang. i thought there was hope but forgot that it was a two hit move. named for manifesting him to be a hitmontop.

PUDDLES - water type surskit. found in the ruins of alph, died alonside sparrow fighting some random ass monk in the sprout tower. his talent was only knowing aurora beam.

RUN 2 -----

PRINCE - fire/ice type eevee. he was a mysterious fellow, with his Two Different Kinds of Demon Eyes (one with the power of ice and the other with fire) but he always had ways of surprising everyone. with his ability to produce honey. which is weird.

BABYMETAL - steel type weedle. a timid gal, came along with our party because she thought it would be safe for her in a group. unfortunately, she was wrong. but in her last moments she fought with no fear in her heart, willing to sacrifice her life for her friends that she met 10 minutes ago.

DAVE - rock/ground type buizel. had just joined the party right before youngster joey's entei. he didnt even know what was coming.

run 2's party all fell tragically against youngster joey, who in this run happened to have an entei. and had supereffective moves against prince. they all fought valiantly but a level 4 entei was just too much for them to handle.

in conclusion-- of course youngster joey is the one to have an entei. im literally laughing my ass off in like. despair. and in the first one i kept on losing encounters because they were all like mythicals and legendaries xD i am NOT going to be increasing capture rates that is the cowards way out.

but i have to play every battle like its the last one, because even wild pokemon will surprise you (like in sir spin's case).... one of these days i will CONQUER this challenge. and victory will taste so sweet. lol.

[acradaunt]

Acra's EO Guild Card Megapost

Guild Cards are a neat thing in the most of the Etrian Odyssey games. Sometimes, they're pretty pointless, but in some, they actually do some neat stuff. I… have a tendency to do multiple playthroughs, to try different team compositions (as seeing how different a game can feel based on your builds is one of my favourite things ever, and I also like abandon them before the big fights, on the hypothetical urge I want to re-fight a boss at an appropriate level an infinite number of times), so I've amassed a fair few of my own.

Why am I uploading these now? Apparently the Nexus database got borked a couple days ago, so this is the perfect time for me to get a few feet in the door. I also swear this is the last time I'll ever post about these, seriously.

EO Nexus -A total of 100 Guild Cards are needed to unlock the Vampire pseudo-class. Obviously, 100 is a lot, so they obviously expected the community, paltry it may be, to come together to make a database. And they did. And then they locked it the second they got 108. And then it died. So now I finally get a second chance to contribute.

Galeforce

-My first (main) playthrough. I actually uploaded a card weekly to help out, but I think only the first one made it on in time. It's not Heroic because it's like a NG+++++ file. This is the final card, but for the weekly set of them, um, here:

Week 0 || Week 1 || Week 2 || Week 3 || Week 4 || Week 5 || Week 6 || Week 7

Stardust

-Filled with all my C-listers that couldn't fit into Galeforce. I ran them as two separate teams; the Boss Killers (shown here), who fought the FOEs/Bosses, and Team Midriff, who did all the exploration.

Sunstorm

-A Guild consisting of classes I mostly avoid using, and portraits I hadn't (as of its conception) used before. As always, there's like another three members that get used that aren't here, including a Survivalist, Nightseeker, and an Arcanist.

Maelstrom

-An attempt at a Nuzlocke-esque run, and also an 'evil' party. Characters stopped being used if they died, but only until the end of the stratum, to not make it overbearing. Being an evil party lacking in support and healing, this was an absolute slog that I considered a total failure by the Jungle.

Brilliant

-An idea for a mage-guild that kinda went askew. Starting as a Sovereign, three Zodiacs, and a Farmer, I ultimately turned this into three single-element teams; Each consisting of a unique Sovereign, a unique Zodiac, two other characters that get earlygame elemental skills (Survivalist's Flame Arrow, Landsknecht, etc.), but the same Farmer (Hazel) across all three. Didn't take it all that far, but worked kinda well!

EOV -Definitely where Guild Cards are seen the most. About 2-4 times every floor, there'll be an event that'll use you GC database to have another guild interact with you in the labyrinth. If you have none, you'll be introduced to memelord Conrad of the Freeblade Guild about 110 times in your course of a playthrough. In stark contrast, Nexus only has GC events maybe a dozen times across the whole game.

Starlight

-Main guild. Not a lot to say. It's a Chain-oriented party, because I love Fencers/Landsknechts.

Bundt

-Cake pun. See, bundt is a type of cake, and the guild is filled with Brouni. As in Brownies, the fairy/pixie/sprite, but I'm punning off the--- ANYWAY. Horrific offense, but don't die easily. Kinda miserable against a few specific enemies like the coffin jerks on 15F, but otherwise worked astonishingly better than you'd expect. Which is; not GOOD, but totally serviceable.

Necrocosm

-My original 'evil' guild, featuring two Necromancers, and edge as far as the eye can see. Two Necros work pretty well together; typically Velvet summoned them and Rue made them explode. The fact Necros heal and have evil vibes let them succeed where Maelstrom would totally fail. I also didn't bench anyone for dying, so that probably helped too.

Firebird

-This playthrough is only saved at Amalgolem and took like a single weekend to get there, so I didn't remember squat about it. Amalgolem is like my single fave boss in the whole series, so I just had to leave a file there. It's heavily skewed towards non-humans, and the bottom deck of the guild is just full of nigh-on unusable cross-classed horrors, like a Celestrian Pugilist and Therian Warlock.

EO2U -Probably where Guild Cards are the most functionally useful. Lets you get the Grimoire Stones the attached character has on hand as many times as you can afford. Pretty nifty, as Grimoires are semi-random in spawning.

Skyquake

-So I didn't actually buy EO2U when it came out for a variety of factors, not least being unaware how different it was from the original EOII, my first EO game. So I've only started this and Untold I fairly recently.

Ironroot

-Holy Gift gives you extra experience, but each level costs twice as much to trade as the previous. That is, you need two level 3 Grimoires to get a level 4. Or 128 level 3s for a single level 10. So having a Guild Card with lowish level Holy Gift is actually pretty dang useful to have.

Untold

-Story Guild. Haven't… uh, haven't exactly been Motivated to do Story mode in Untold 2. On paper, I really dislike the team composition. In practice, hasn't been so bad, but still not enough to make me play them more than necessary.

Fellbloom

-Now legally required Evil Guild. Probably won't ever get past Chimaera.

EOU -Unlike the sequel, Guild Cards don't let you choose what to get from the friend's Guild Card. You just get given a random Grimoire Stone once per playthrough per Guild Card. Kinda lame.

Untold -Unlike later games, only one save file here, and the game nigh-on requires you to play through the Story Mode before doing Classic in NG+, so, that's where we sit.

EOIV -First game to use QR codes. III had Guild Cards, but I don't know how you'd trade them. They do serve a purpose here; each Card gets given a random treasure, and having a Card lets you find that treasure in the overworld. Most are crap, but some are circumstantially useful, and some are permanent stat-boosts, IIRC. I don't think mine was very good…?

Zephyr

-Uh, EOIV had a glitch where your Ventured Days would go up dramatically every time you paused. I think it comes into affect if you ever do NG+. So I haven't actually played for 48 in-game years. Truth be told, now knowing of a way to back up save files, I am admittedly tempted to make a new EOIV playthrough, since it's been like a decade, but for my own sanity, I really probably shouldn't.

[foxoftheasterisk]

hi y'all want to hear about this pokémon challenge run i made up? yes you do

it's significantly more complicated than a Nuzlocke (not hard given that has literally two rules) but i feel it wins out on Feel, style of challenge, and which parts are most challenging

so anyway i present to you:

The Average Trainer challenge

(This is best played with the use of a randomizer, but rules for vanilla are also provided)

Rule 1: Normal Starter

Instead of the regular starter, you start with a Normal-type pokémon.

If using a randomizer, you should replace the starters offered with random first-stage Normal pokémon. Lists for each generation follow:

Otherwise, as soon as you can obtain poké balls, go to the first route, catch the first Normal-type pokémon you encounter, and release your starter.

Rule 2: Party Loyalty

Once you catch a pokémon, you cannot remove it from your party.

... except if it dies. Also, deliberately killing your pokémon to remove them from the party is strictly forbidden.

You also can't catch excess pokémon and store them in the PC.

Rule 3: Only the willing

You may only catch Pokémon that seek you out.

(Ok, that's not really the rule, but i couldn't make this one pithy, sue me.)

Only the first pokémon you encounter in an area may be caught. However, this resets after defeating a gym leader or losing one of your pokémon.

(In Alola, both types of trial reset this.)

Also, you may never catch a second pokémon of the same evolutionary line, even if the first has died. (If the first pokémon in an area is a duplicate, that still uses up your opportunity!)

Also, you may not accept gift pokémon, trades, eggs, or fossil pokémon, nor may you catch legendaries or mythicals. Other static encounters (such as voltorb or drifloon) are allowed.

Rule 4: Rules of Battle

In battle against other trainers, you have a limited number of items or switch-outs to use.

This is the complicated one.

A bailout is defined as use of an active item or switching out a usable pokémon.

Using held items—even single use ones like Berries—does not count as a bailout. You may also withdraw a non–fainted pokémon without counting it as a bailout if it has less than 50% (yellow or red) health or a non–volatile status effect, but if you do, you cannot use it again this battle.

Different types of trainers have different rules of engagement.

League battles, like those against gym leaders, elite four, champions, and kahunas, are the strictest. You may only use as many pokémon as your opponent, and you may use a number of bailouts equal to half that number, rounded down.

Battles with most trainers are civilized. In such battles you may use all your pokémon, but only a number of bailouts equal to half your opponent's number of pokémon, rounded up.

A brutal battle, such as one against wild pokémon or villain teams, has no limits to the number of bailouts used.

Rule 5: Less rules, more risk

The looser the rules of engagement, the greater the risk of death.

Brutal battles carry a high risk of death; if your pokémon faints in a brutal battle, and a single turn of battle passes, that pokémon is dead. (Any amount of time outside of battle is fine, but if another battle starts, the pokémon will die.)

This includes a turn in which you run away! However, if you run before sending out your next pokémon, your fainted pokémon is safe. (For now.)

In civilized battles, trainers make some effort not to kill their opponents. However, it's not foolproof, and if your pokémon faints in a civilized battle, it will die if you enter another battle.

League battles are highly regulated, and pokémon who faint in a league battle have no risk of death.

Rule 6: All battles matter

If you lose any battle, you lose the game.

Rule 7: Limited supplies

You may never buy revival items, nor may you obtain more than one by any individual renewable means.

Revival items include, but may not be limited to, Revive, Max Revive, and Rare Candy.

Rule 8: Battle experience only

You may not use the Daycare, Exp. All, Exp. Share, or any other source of non-battle experience.

Rare Candy is the one exception.

Also, you may not use experience boosters such as the Lucky Egg.

One last thing...

These rules are not meant to restrict your use of HMs. Pokémon you use only as HM slaves may ignore all of these rules; however, you may never use them in battle.

Also, randomizer restrictions!

These rules are designed for the normal distribution of wild pokémon; therefore, if you wish to randomize wild pokémon, you must use the "global 1–to–1" and "similar strength" options. (If not using the Ultimate Pokémon Randomizer, these may have different names.) However, you may also play with only the starters changed. (I tend to find a trio of runs with each set of wild pokémon—including the vanilla set—is a reasonable number to use and not get bored.)

I usually also use the "change impossible evolutions", "use time based encounters" and "don't use legendaries" (for wild pokémon), and "national dex at start" options. You don't have to use these, but I recommend it.

I tend to find that randomizing wild pokémon but not trainer pokémon makes the game a little easier (at least at the start), so you may want to randomize trainer pokémon to avoid that. If you do, I strongly recommend also using the "similar strength" and "type themed gyms" options.

I don't recommend randomizing items or pokémon traits, but you do you.

That's it! Go play!

[ask-obt]

hello woo of the led on tumblr! im thinking of making a comic for my ongoing gates to infinity nuzlocke and because its such a story heavy game im wondering if you have any tips on how to change things up and make your own plot beats? its really cool but im having a little trouble with it right now

// oooo fun, I love gates' story! I'd say that most of OBT's plot changes stem from two sources: 1. expanding on a mechanic in the game/trying to rationalize a plot hole, and/or 2. expanding on the reasons a character behaves the way they do so using gates as an example, some standout scenes I'd love to explore would be gurdurr tricking the team to get some extra cash (why is he so strapped for money? is there a housing crisis going on in town? does he perhaps have some physical injury that makes him feel like he can't perform "honest" work and feels the need to try getting by any way he can?), and kyurem crushing the hero into a fine paste (what sort of injuries do they sustain from this? any permanent damage? does this make it so they go through an arc where they lose hope in their mission to save the world for a bit? how will they recover, both physically and emotionally?)

and if some things don't come naturally to you right away, don't sweat it! I started the script for the current iteration of OBT all the way back in 2017, and it took me until 2022 to figure out what exactly I wanted darkrai's hangup to be in the epilogue. the nice thing about a slow cooking format like a comic is that I get a lot of time to simmer on different story ideas, so simmer away and let things cook as needed! and of course reading other fan theories and stories is great for getting a spark of inspiration. good luck!

[great-tusk]

hii iris🙋🏽 so about these tags:

if you ever want game anime season or any other poké media recommendations I've played every game and-

watched almost every season of the anime AHAHAHA

I am here for recommendations🗣️ if you don't mind lol

I watched this 4 artist video where they made fake pokémon and gym leaders and it was sooo cool!!✨ I really wanna get into the lore because it's such a fascinating and intricate world, but there's sm content I'm a little overwhelmed😵

I'm not very good at games and I don't have much time so I'd really appreciate any media recommendations that I can watch🙇🏽‍♀️

take your time responding and have a great day🍀✨

@i-put-the-s4p-in-s4pphic

@i-put-the-s4p-in-s4pphic OKAY OKAY OKAY SO! (<- incredibly excited to talk about this.) The anime and games take place in essentially the same world (but different timelines), so the world-building is similar, with a few notable exceptions. For example, most of the characters and their stories not overlapping, and a lot of ages being changed. (For example, anime Serena is 10, but game Serena is implied by other characters to be an older teenager.) There are also a few anime-only characters and a lot of game-only characters and characters who overlap having different personalities.

You can watch the anime here. The website seems to be ordered in reverse chronological order, so just scroll to the bottom if you wanna start at the beginning. Indigo League (the first season) is my favorite. I also really like Orange Islands. Diamond and Pearl is also great. You don’t have to watch the seasons in order to understand things, because most plots don’t span across multiple seasons. You can even skip around a little in seasons, but you might be a little confused about little plots. I do recommend at least watching the first few episodes of a season before other episodes to get acquainted with the characters and their dynamics. I remember that X and Y have some overarching plots that are pretty important to the story, so that one is probably a little harder to watch out of order.

Pokémon Concierge is also amazing. It’s stop motion and very pretty and made me cry. I can’t find a place to watch it online, but it’s on Netflix if you have that. (Or I’m sure that it’s online somewhere.)

You can also watch playthroughs of the games. For the most part, though, people in them do not go too into the little details of the games and will skip through dialogue. I looked around for some, and I’ve never watched his videos, but I skimmed through, and this guy seems to have done a pretty detailed playthrough of Sword. He’s also done Pokémon Scarlet! It seems like he narrates all of the lines, too, so you can even watch while paying half-attention. Another guy seems to have played Black and White, and Black 2 and White 2 in a similar style. I’ve never watched his videos, but he’s a pretty big YouTuber. B/W and B2/W2 are the absolute best games in the franchise in my opinion.

For the games, they are almost entirely standalone. You don’t need any knowledge of a previous game to understand what’s going on. The only exceptions are the rare occasions in which there will be a cameo of a character from a previous game. (For example, Red and Blue show up in the Alola region, and Ingo shows up in Legends Arceus. Although you don’t actually have to have played their games to get what’s going on. They’re introduced like any other character. Just fun Easter eggs.) Or in the only case of like a true sequel in the series, which is Black and White to Black 2 and White 2.

My personal favorite Pokétubers are these two. They don’t really do lore stuff, but I love their content. WolfeyVGC does official competitive, and has won the World Championship before! And FlygonHG is an amazing Nuzlocker and super funny. (If you’re unfamiliar with what a Nuzlocke is, it’s a challenge run where if a Pokémon faints, it’s dead forever, and you can only catch the first Pokémon you find per route.) They’re definitely not required watching or anything, but their stuff is really interesting. Wolfey talks a lot about which Pokémon are competitively viable, and Flygon has super suspenseful runs, and even manages to make the most of Pokémon that aren’t very good when it comes to battling in his runs. I love the stories and characters in the games, but I’m also super deep in the more hardcore community-focused battling and challenges, and these two fall into the latter category.

There are also a bunch of others who fall into a bunch of different niches. Here are a few guys who I watch who do pretty funny battling content with their friends.

I know this is super long, but I hope it helps.

As thanks for reading all of it, you can look at this Pokémon Rumble Rush Axew.