team-ion

[team-ion]

Thank you so much

ive kept saying to myself “ahh this scene is so good i wanna draw it for comic practice” over and over and then the thing that made me crack out my tablet was guardian being the worlds most dramatic father ever [IF YOU LIKE PMD REWRITE/WHAT IF FICS GO READ WARPED SKIES. AT LEAST THE FIRST FIVE CHAPTERS. PLEASE]

[team-ion]

Just had a thought about Magnagates. So in warped skies, Magnagates are these reality-bending, mind-fucking, vomit-inducing things. Is this also the case for the Magnagates used by Espeon and Umbreon in Gates to Infinity? What about Keldeo's Advanced Gigabrain Magnagate that allowed travel across the sky to the Glacier Palace without a Mystery Dungeon in between?

Due to the way that Magnagates function, they’re all pretty dangerous. The Paradise folk, however, did develop techniques and tactics to utilise them a little bit safer, a little bit less horrifying. So, while they’re banned on the Grass Continent, the Mist Continent allows their use in controlled situations.

[team-ion]

Some fanart for @random-games newest PMD fanfic up at ao3 <3

[team-ion]

I think your character of Trill is The Chatot(tm) to me. I was playing Explorers of Spirit (a generally very well written fangame) and Chatot was kind of a dick in it and I was like no!!!! That's not my boy!!!! It kind of made sense with what we know of him in canon but it felt so wrong regardless. I still get somewhat emotional in Brine Cave even though I know nothing terrible happens in canon </3

-codacheetah

That’s very nice of you to say, haha. I do love my stuffy, hoity-toity, secretly loving guild dad bird.

I have a soft spot for the types of characters that appear to be a bit... you know, Chatot like but then show they have a true heart of gold underneath, which I think happens with Brine Cave in Canon. He’s tough on you, probably in part because Wigglytuff won’t be, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care.

[team-ion]

It's been a hot minute since I've read Warped Skies (power of procrastination baby!) but I keep thinking about it all the time lol... was looking at Meowth's official PMD sprites and I'm obsessed thinking about Scout making these silly ass faces ❤️

- codacheetah

Those are some quality faces and I can imagine a few fun contexts for him making those faces, haha That second on the right face looks hilarious to imagine him doing.

All of these would go across his face in Chapter 20. You know the scene.

[team-ion]

Singing

Guardian likes to sing. Scout often would try and copy him but wasn’t very good at it. Guardian still loved every word though.

[team-ion]

i was backreading the blog, and a number of asks ago (more specifically, the one about the characters' thoughts about scout revealing his secret video game knowledge) sean says, "it's just like my one of my old fanfics...", which had me wondering what he was writing about. was there some in-universe media he was making fanfiction of?

Sean absolutely wrote a bit of young teen fanfiction about pokemon journeys and some games that he played. Pokemon version of Fire Emblem and such.

[team-ion]

(not to team ion but to team-ion, the writer)

hi i, uh, recommended warped skies at a book club. i'm so good at this. i had to present its points in 40 seconds and failed miserably :D

anyways. yes

That’s really nice of you, thank you!

How would one summarise it in 40 seconds, hmm?

Protagonists thinks he’s played this game before but he’s actually a little but dumb but cute.

[team-ion]

I have a question, does your story Warped Skies have gay romance between your 2 main characters, if not them who has the gay romance?

It has gay romance between my three main characters, yes.

[team-ion]

to teams ion and sunrise, what's your voice type (SATB)? more importantly, could i make a whole choir out of just both teams?

Scout: “I believe I’m about an Alto?”

Rai: “I have a soft voice, check out the Explorers anime special for the shinx I’m based on. Um... I think Alto.”

Mane: “I have the deepest voice of the three, maybe Tenor.”

Sean: “I have a similar voice to Scout, somewhere between Scout and Mane, probably closer to Tenor.”

Striker: “Bass, obviously.” When he’s trying, otherwise a deeper Tenor.

Saniya: “Soprano, of course tee hee.”

Guardian: “I have the actual deepest voice, definitely Bass.”

[team-ion]

To team Ion(minus Scout for what will soon be obvious) and Team Sunrise, if one of you had the memories of the game instead of Scout what would you truly have done and how do you think it would have effected you or how events proceeded?

Scout: “I should say that a portion of the problem came from sharing in a certain someone’s trauma.”

Rai: “Yeah, we’ll assume we have that which makes trying to tell someone initially begin the starts of a panic attack. For me, I was a little shyer than Scout but to be honest, bolder even at the start. I’d have told Scout at Fogbound Lake, if I knew from the start of my life I’d have kept the Relic Fragment somewhere safe but if the memories only came when the ‘story started’ like with Scout I’d still lose it to Skuntank coming out of nowhere. I’d tell the guild about that right away though.”

Mane: “Okay, well I’d know right away that something different is going on since I never wound up on some beach or close to Rai’s house and because of all that abuse I’d have way less ability to trust. I’d probably do worse than Scout, but I would try and not be an asshole to Rai though.”

Sean: “Out of everyone I’d probably adjust to it the best because I’d have a better idea of the whole context. I’d be really scared I ‘erased’ the real Sean though, that’d majorly affect me. I’d try and keep Guardian on our side from the get go if I knew in advance and if I only remembered after going back in time, once my memory had recovered, I’d tell Striker everything. We trust each other with everything.”

Striker: “Probably be over the moon I became Striker, heh. Similar to Sean, I’d tell him once he was stable enough to hear it and we’d stratagise around Guardian now that it is we who know what’s going on.”

Guardian: “Like the rest, we must assume I only know once I travel back in time. It would undoubtedly shake my convictions to the core. As we know the actual personality effect the memories have is relatively minimal, I fear that my response would be even more violent. I’d know that we are saved by Dialga, but Scout is not part of the story I know. I may actually rationalise that travelling back in time granted me a form of timeline understanding and dismiss the Special Episode 5 as intrusive daydreaming. However, my convictions would still be shaken either way and I might buckle to Scout once we reunited.”

Saniya: “No one’s talking about the cufant in the room. Well, stopping time from stopping is a really important problem but Darky is a trickier one because we don’t know what he’s going to do. And everyone is screwed when the clumsy girl comes tripping down the stairs. Personally, though, I’d become a guru. Make alarmingly accurate predictions and nice gestures that scare people and be like “I just knew” and they’d think I was a goddess or something, lol.”

[team-ion]

Mr Striker! Question for thee! How would you feel if Sean had transformed into Treecko instead of a Riolu?

Striker: *Kinda sees Sean as a parental figure, if just a little bit.*

Sean: *Treecko*

Striker: “Am I the parent now?”

[team-ion]

Ok last message for tonight because it's 5 am but I really do think it's funny that my brain latched onto this fic so hard. I grew up with PMD and have loved it since I was 8, but it's Warped Skies in particular that really occupies my mind. I think Warped Skies feels like what PMD taken much further could be, complexity-wise, since even being such a well-written game it has to appeal to 8 year olds before it does near-18 year olds. Autism makes your brain have funny priorities I guess lmao but I'm glad for it.

I do have to wonder, did you ever think you would go so far with this fic? I'm like 80% sure you made an AN at some point around the Scout reveal about your direction with Scout changing because you saw a comment mentioning Meowth is partner-exclusive in Sky, but I might also be insane or dumb because I checked the first 80 chapters, saw nothing, and also spoiled myself about chimecho being Actually evil since I never made it to chapter 80 :(

I think it is absolute madman behavior that you've written over a million words in this fic and you're actively retrospectively rewriting and refining it. I'm happy for it though. I remember there being some plot threads that felt a bit disjointed that feel a lot more cohesive in this version and I'm really enjoying the new but familiar experience of reading it.

I've gotta stop writing essays in your comments section and your askbox goddamn

-codacheetah

Ah no, you got that spoiler? Oof. That’s probably one of the hardest twists of the story, haha. That was fun to see people’s reactions.

Naaah. I could NEVER have imagined how big the story got or how far I’d go with it. I initially imagined just two arcs and some interesting commentary of how knowing the future doesn’t necessarily mean you can benefit from that, especially when you’re knowledge begins to change things.

You are right, though. I did mention that in an authors note SOMEWHERE. First chapter, he was ‘the human’ and went to the Dark Future and all. That review made me think and I had the crazy idea of ‘What if he wasn’t and the human was still there?’ which quickly moved into ‘Okay, he’s still from the Dark Future. Aha! I can use my headcannon that Dusknoir was part of the Planetary Investigation Team here, hahahaha!’ Ideas just slammed into me like boulders.

I wrote a million words! That means I can do it again with ease~ haha, or maybe not ease but I’ve actually had a surprising amount of fun with the rewrite! I hate editing but it hasn’t felt so much like editing and I actually enjoy reading my own writing in some parts, I used to reread Chapter 51 a lot, heh.

I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll ramble again. The story by and large will be the same as the original, but I know there are parts that could be done better and I would think at points as I’d reread or just think about the story how I might do something different. It gives me the chance to do that. Some changes are minor, some are a bit bigger like with the new Chapter 20 but still mostly ultimated the same.

We’ll see if I can keep to the road and not go off track, hah! Always fun to hear from you, you rest well!

[team-ion]

So in canon, at least anime-wise, it's clear that evolution ≠ age, what with the baby Nidoqueen and elderly Treeko from various episodes. In this universe, how does physically aging work? Is it more tied to evolution, since evolution is maturation of the body? Would a young Pokémon made to evolve early through "training" ala Mane and Rumble (especially into a fearsome Pokémon) receive different treatment than a pre-evolved form? I know Sean is still young, but is "baby Pokémon" as literal in this universe as it is in canon? Sorry for the boatload of questions but I've long wondered when Rai and Mane started coming across as grown and not kids when their species are so small compared to their much more adult-looking evolutions

-codacheetah

Funnily enough this is explored, at least in a minor way, in the sequel!

Age and pokemon is a relatively complicated thing with a few different factors. Take Sean for example, riolu are ‘baby’ pokemon because they cannot reproduce, however chronologically Sean is probably only younger than Saniya of the main group. He’s much older than, say, Striker.

As for Striker, he’s actually not much older than Scout, maybe a year or so, but of course he seems a lot older. In part that might be his evolution, it could also be how Guardian tried to protect Scout a lot more while Striker had to grow up or or die.

Pokemon physically mature quite quickly in some respects. Rai and Mane are both around 5 to 6 years old, but mentally/physically they are early adults *despite* still being in their base forms. Arashi evolved not long after they came to Treasure Town to better take care of Rai and herself, she herself is still only maybe a year or two older than Rai.

(The sequel will go into at least a little exploration of how physical maturity doesn’t always equate to mental maturity and that there is still a lot of growth that happens internally that most pokemon can’t imagine or understand but the human characters are a bit more clued onto and are trying to do something about it)

It also can come down to a species matter. Many psychics develop slower, many bugs develop faster. The physical maturity side of things is always faster than humans, always. Mental maturity is very much influenced by nurture. Someone who has to grow up faster simply does, while others can take longer. Take Rai and Mane and Scout in their situations vs some of the Treasure Town schoolchildren. They are older, but by how much?

Complex thing. I generally left a lot of that stuff to behind the scenes and interesting facts than going into detail in story, but the questions are always fun to ponder. In some cases I tried to look at real-world species, in others I compared to how fast pokemon have matured in the anime.

[team-ion]

I've been cooking a Scout-centric animatic in my head for a good long time because I am persistently rotating him around in my brain but honestly I'm glad that I'm gonna have to fridge it for longer because for the life of me I cannot draw this man. I can draw Rai and Mane and they look cute as fuck, and I draw so many cats it's comical. Then I get to this fuckin dude and I can't do it. Meowth having a nose is breaking me. Wonder if you'll change stuff so much my idea won't work... -codacheetah

A whole animation? Wow!

Meowth with nose is the superior life form, but there’s art of him that doesn’t so it’s certainly not a do or die feature, haha.

Much of the story should still be the same, but I’m curious at what part(s) you’re considering?

[team-ion]

Soooo Mr Guardian, when did first start to realize that the little Meowth everyone saw as "Sean" was in actuality your little boy Scout? Was it obvious from the start or was he so expertly subtle that it took you a long while to realize?

Scout: “It was obvious from the start, wasn’t it, dad?”

Guardian:

Guardian:

Guardian: “Well.”

///

Guardian: “Obviously he rang many bells in my head due to the physical similarity. Sadly for me, I hadn’t seen Scout properly for some time and thus his new scars and thinness was not quite the same as I remembered. I was convinced it was likely him after Amp Plains, but I also couldn’t discount the fact that Sean and Striker never left him alone. Thus, they were either close or perhaps they weren’t and this wasn’t him. Scout also wasn’t the best, uh, actor at times. Not for very long. So, I determined I just needed to stay close to see if he slipped up.”

[team-ion]

Hmm, recently I started reading some cool PMD fanfics, like this one really good fic called Warped Skies. Knowing that you write pmd fanfics, I felt curious: what are some pmd fanfics you'd read before that you recommend reading?

I originally read Canon Breakage https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12715784/1/Pok%C3%A9mon-Mystery-Dungeon-Canon-Breakage which served as a bit of inspiration.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13688748/1/Pokemon-Mystery-Dungeon-Eternal-Shadows

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12699122/1/Pokemon-Mystery-Dungeon-The-Dreamstone is my personal favourite PMD story.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13384497/1/Do-Psychic-Cats-Dream-of-Electric-Sheep

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13466920/1/Pok%C3%A9mon-Mystery-Dungeon-Quenched-Torch