#And then a bit more with Dex </3 I had these ideas on the first reading (or so - in the same time period anyhow) but only got to them later
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Delusions (Patreon)
"Could I have your hand, sir?" Max didn't move, which Dexter was, sadly, getting used to.
"Sir?" Max jerked, then turned and stared at him, lost and blank. "Your hand, please."
Max's hand lifted shakily, and he laid it gently in Dexter's upturned palm. Dexter gave a quick and quiet "thank you," then turned it over in his own hand, observing him closely.
Too closely - his knuckles were rough and his fingernails were dull and cracked in places. His once-soft, not-a-day-in-his-life-subjected-to-hard-labour hands were now, already, toughened and split and scarred in places, especially the heel of his palm. He turned it over again, this time to stop looking so intensely. He had only wanted to give it a cursory glance to begin with.
"Do you know what I see, sir?" he asked as conversationally as he could manage, running his fingers along Max's abused flesh. He seemed to be at least half paying attention, his eye gazing down between them, and he'd occasionally twitch, encouragingly Dexter thought. He seemed to want to curl around him, then stopped and shook, his hand squeezing into a fist. Dexter coaxed him back out, encouraged him to hold himself lightly.
"What do you see?" He was almost startled by Max actually continuing their conversation, that happened so rarely now, shaking and quiet as it was. He took a deep breath, was he really going to do this?
"I see a hand, with five fingers." Max remained quiet, though his brow curled, and a guarded look came into his eye, though he still wasn't looking at Dexter. He felt a pang of guilt, but he had to try. "What do you see?"
Max's eye unfocused and began to water. He looked up, but not enough to reach Dexter's gaze in return, instead staring through his chest, and he felt just as hollow and empty as he must look to him.
"Do you take me for a fool, DAX?" Quiet and as close to angry as he'd heard since they'd been here.
No, not angry.
Betrayed.
He swallowed down the stinging lump at the back of his throat. He had to put on a brave face, had to keep his composure if he wanted Max to get better. That was the only thing he wanted, more than anything.
"Of course not, sir. Genuinely, what do you see?"
Max pulled his hand away and turned his body, his bandaged side facing Dexter. Shutting him out, pointedly. Dexter's empty hand curled into a fist, he was no better.
"Please, don't..." Max took a shallow, shuddering breath, and several beats before he spoke again, even quieter. "Don't ridicule me." Dexter could hear his breath catch, and he wanted nothing more than for this all to just stop.
"Sir, I didn't-"
"I've had enough of that." He shook his head stiffly, the action strange and wrong, like he had forgotten how. He stilled, his head turned even further away. "More than enough."
#Doodles#SCII#Helix#ZEX#Dexter Favin#And a drabble-fic under the cut#I ended up writing that the night after I read - I was a bit too inspired while busy so it's a little on the unfocused side haha#I would've cleaned it but I worry it wouldn't make it out of that stage! Please enjoy it for now <3#This set is mostly periphery ideas - inspired by events rather than directly shown ♪ I suppose the first two kinda count tho#But they're more directly of the little scene I wrote ouò Poor ZEX </3#And Dex! He's usually so capable! But he's stretching himself so thin ahh it's hard to watch in the best way#Of course he doesn't want to give ''Max'' over to just anyone - anyone at all really - both of their trusts have bottomed out#But how much could he reasonably care for him in that state? When he's still being actively haunted and most importantly - Not Max#He needs helps he needs support he needs to sleep and shower but a second with his eyes off Max and - then what? He'll immolate from fear#It's hard to imagine him crying but pushed to this extreme? To the thought of losing Max utterly and completely? Hhhhh#I do also just love him being possessive even outside of how terrible the situation is - he's always had his glimpses but this situation#Brings out the worst in him <3 In terrible ways#Really his method is just setting ''Max'' up nearby and prompting him over the sound of the shower like that's not nerve-wracking at all#Like he already doesn't answer half the time if that#As for the mini fic I was really interested in Dex's line about indulging ''Max's'' delusions#Apart from the fact that they're not delusions - not that anyone believes him outside of the Institute - what it means to indulge is weird#I saw one example of how to handle delusions that stuck with me - how not to deny them outright while also not reinforcing them#Since it's not actually helpful to be told ''That isn't Really happening to you'' when to you - to ZEX - it really is! How invalidating#And so rather to take the approach of ''I don't see/feel/hear what you are - I can't find any evidence of it myself'' and extrapolating#Dex taking the approach of ''What reality are you experiencing right now?'' and trying to build from there!#Unfortunately ZEX has already been treated like....well like all that - he's not in the mood for games even well-intentioned ones#He /knows/ he's in a human body. He can feel that and see that and understands that. It doesn't change who - what he /is/#The idea of a completely broken ZEX is so sad to me :( He's so strong and prideful and vivacious - Max really is another him </3#It's not the same but he was saved from death! To fall into torture... But even despite that I want to see him succeed! As much as he can#Even in that small and shaking way I want to see him be hateful and spiteful - angry. Powerful <3 Fighting ♥
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how i caught entei in leafgreen in the most ridiculous way possible
SO last week i started a pokemon leafgreen file on my childhood cart i've had since my 5th birthday, and one my goals ended up being getting every owned dex entry possible in JUST the one copy of leafgreen without connecting to any other game… and i did. except i forgot one. ENTEI!!
like probably a lot of you reading this i COMPLETELY forgot that one of the johto roaming beasts is in every copy of FRLG. i never even caught any of them as a kid. which roamer you get is based on your starter (squirtle = raikou, bulbasaur = entei, charmander = suicune) and i happened to pick bulbasaur so my roamer was entei. it does actually ROAM in kanto, aka whenever you change locations, the pokemon moves to a new route. obviously this is a pain in the ass, but it gets even more painful because roamers can flee from the battle and they will the instant you encounter them. you get the chance to throw one ball or use one move and that's it… so like in most pokemon games, you would use a trapping move like mean look to keep the roamer in the battle and turn it into a normal legendary encounter, right? HAHA WRONG
raikou and entei are affected by the ROAMER ROAR BUG in FRLG, which means if they use roar to escape the battle (yes, even in mean look, it doesn't stop roar from working) they just disappear from the game. permanently. forever. you can never capture it. suicune is not affected by this because it doesn't have roar, but my roamer was entei, so uh. the odds were stacked against me. did i want to repetitively encounter the roamer over and over, never trapping it, just throwing one ball each time? or did i want to set up a mean look pokemon only to have to soft reset every time entei used roar? neither option sounded fun and i was going to just give up and master ball it despite REALLY wanting it in a luxury ball like all the other kanto legendaries i had already caught… UNTIL!
i am a moderator of the ribbon master discord (a different pokemon challenge) and i was just sorta liveposting my thought process about this annoying roamer when gen 3 rng manipulation extraordinaire ddeeffgg crashes into the chat and suggests this fucking bonkers idea. and his bonkers idea is galaxy brain LET ME EXPLAIN
ariados is available in leafgreen's post game by catching spinarak in pattern bush, and of course electrode is a fairly common kanto pokemon. ariados gets access to spider web, which is basically just mean look with a different name (and i completely forgot it existed), it traps the opponent in the battle. but IMPORTANTLY, it ALSO gets access to BATON PASS… which, in gen 3, passes the trapping effect! usually if you were to use spider web and swap out ariados, the opponent would no longer be trapped, but baton pass solves that! and then electrode has the ability soundproof which prevents roar from working, and it even gets thunder wave (paralysis) and sonicboom (consistent 20 damage with no chance of accidental crits) to assist in easier capture of entei! nice!! awesome!! but getting this setup in order is the most ridiculous shit i've ever done in leafgreen
PROBLEM #1: ariados gets baton pass through egg move. in gen 3, egg moves are only passed down by the father and not the mother, so i had to grab a male ledyba, grind it to a high enough level to learn baton pass, then grab a female spinarak and breed them together. unfortunately this means my ariados would be level 1 and i'd have to train it up quite a bit, which leads into my next problem…
PROBLEM #2: ariados is SLOWWW. its base speed is a measly 40 compared to entei's whopping 100! ariados needs to outspeed entei to use spider web first turn so entei can't just run away! i would have to get ariados to a very high level to outspeed entei, grinding all the way from level 1. the one plus side is that the roamers in FRLG are bugged to always have a 0 IV in defense, special attack, special defense, and speed, which means unless entei has a +speed nature, its speed would always be a predictable and relatively low 105 at level 50, which is what it's encountered at. so i had to get an ariados with a speed of 106 or higher.
to get around both these problems as efficiently as possible, while breeding spinarak, i bred quite a few to get one with a +speed nature, and ended up with a jolly spinarak. everstone doesn't work in FRLG unfortunately, so the nature was completely random each time. soon my DAUGHTER WAS BORN after like 2-3 hours of breeding because FRLG eggs are SLOOOW and i was being stubborn about the nature, which i was getting unlucky on LOL
then i maxed out her speed EVs real quick by fighting picnicker susie on route 13 over and over, who gives 12 speed EVs per battle, 24 with the macho brace, which i was using. this was just to make sure i would reach 106+ speed as fast as possible. then i grinded her levels by repetitively fighting the two trainers right outside the weird chansey dance guy's house in sevault canyon on seven island, right above tanoby ruins. using the vs seeker on them is the best grinding spot in the game since they give 20k experience per fighting both of them and there's a healing spot Right There. i was using exp share and leading with my level 100 jolteon named Egg who i adore with all my heart. ariados, now named koolaid, ended up crossing the speed threshold at level 62! yes this took a while lmao
as for electrode, i wanted one at as high of a level as possible so i hopefully wouldn't have to grind levels. i lucked out as electrode is found at a whopping level 64 in cerulean cave's bottom floor. a 5% encounter rate but as i had already caught numerous 5%s for the pokedex, i didn't really care. however it DOES have explosion and i'd rather not have the electrode explode on me before i could catch it which would then send me on a wild goose chase for ANOTHER 5% electrode… so i grabbed the random level 24 poliwhirl with the damp ability, which prevents explosion from working, out of my PC, and gave it a smoke ball from the celadon game corner so i could lead with her and easily run from each encounter that Wasn't Electrode.
now you may be wondering how i was going to handle capturing electrode once i was actually in the battle because SURELY it would just use thunderbolt or something and instantly murder my poliwhirl. however funnily enough electrode only has two attacking moves at level 64, swift and explosion. explosion obviously doesn't work, and swift is a physical attack in gen 3 due to all normal type moves being physical, this was before the physical/special split in gen 4. electrode's physical attack stat is a garbage 50 and swift only has a base power of 60 so i honestly wasn't concerned. and best of all, poliwhirl gets the move hypnosis, so i could easily put electrode to sleep and start chucking ultra balls… and the smoke ball ended up being useless because i somehow ran into electrode first try what the fuck LOL
anyways i named them gatorade to match with koolaid. truly the dream entei capturing team. i didn't even feel the need to grind any levels on gatorade, level 64 was more than enough, so i just slapped the two moves i wanted on them - thunder wave through the one-use tutor in silph co, and sonicboom through the move reminder on two island, costing me two tinymushrooms which i thankfully already had and did not have to go out of my way to grind.
however the hours worth of prep ISN'T DONE YET! because uhh…
PROBLEM #3: ariados has to be above entei's level to outspeed it (yes, even if it had a 31 IV in speed AND a speed boosting nature AND maximum speed EVs, it still wouldn't be enough at level 50), which means the repel trick can't be used to encounter it. tracking down the roamer is practically impossible without using repels to cancel out all other wild pokemon, and in gen 3, unlike later gens, you can't put a fainted pokemon in the front of the party for the repel trick instead. and if i DON'T lead with ariados, entei will run away when i try to swap into it. SO i decided i would have to run into entei once first through the repel trick method, which marks it as "seen" in the pokedex, and then i would track its location through the pokedex to encounter it while leading with ariados.
to accomplish this, i simply ran in and out of the building on route 16, going in and out of the grass in the process, which would constantly be randomizing entei's location until it happened to randomize onto route 16. i caught a staryu with illuminate as an ability to raise the chance of entei appearing, which does work while staryu is fainted (wouldn't want to go in and out of the grass while entei was on route 16 without encountering it!) and otherwise led with my level 50 magmar that was on my elite four team named Torch for the repel trick.
i bought a whopping 100 max repels for this task but i ended up getting entei within just a few lol. torch was holding the smoke ball just to be able to run away safely without any shenanigans!
and now entei was in the pokedex and able to be tracked that way!
however, there was still ONE more problem...
PROBLEM #4: luxury balls are a pain in the ASS to get in this game! they can't be bought from any shop. the only way to repeatedly get luxury balls in FRLG is to show a pokemon to selphy, a rich girl who lives in resort gorgeous on five island.
i will mostly skim over this because it's boring, but TLDR i had to continuously talk to her, fly back to the pokemon center, get the pokemon she wanted to see out of the PC because the step limit is 250 before she gets sick of waiting which is like nothing (i already had a living dex of every mon obtainable in leafgreen otherwise so this wasn't hard), surf to her, then spam A through dialogue with her butler in which i had a 70% chance of receiving a luxury ball. i did this over 40 times until i had 30 luxury balls, and sold off all the nuggets and other items she gave me. good lord this took a while
and now with ALL of that setup i was FINALLY ready to capture entei in a luxury ball. this took me literally all day and i was really excited. to consistently encounter entei, i saved in cerulean city and tracked it in the pokedex from there, opening it over and over after changing to any of the four routes connected to the city, and moving to an adjacent route from entei's location when it was close in the hopes of walking onto the same route it moved to when i did. i was following a map made by hangarofroam, he has a video tutorial on how to shiny hunt the FRLG roamers and encounter them as quickly as possible, and i highly recommend looking it up if you want to capture these roamers yourself, but tldr this is the map i was using:
and once i encountered entei i was finally able to use the strategy i had prepped so long to do... and it worked without a hitch!! entei can't try to use roar first turn because it wastes a turn trying to flee, which is prevented by ariados outspeeding and using spider web... then if it tries to use roar the next turn, i've already switched into electrode to block it with soundproof. so from there it's just a matter of whittling down entei's HP to the red with swift/sonicboom and paralyzing it with thunder wave, then tossing luxury balls until success!
and i GOT IT after 3 encounter attempts and 73 luxury balls thrown. and FINALLY i have all 171 national dex entries possible in a single copy of leafgreen with no connection to other games, and all the legendaries are in fancy ass luxury balls. i am winning.
this was ridiculous. please be proud of my accomplishments. i've had this file for less than 2 weeks and i already have over 70 hours of gameplay in it after doing all this AAAAA
also barely related but look at Egg my jolteon he had like no purpose in this story but i took a pic of him in front of entei before going on to capture entei because i love him so much pleas
thanks for coming to my fucking ted talk i am SOOO normal about pokemonsdfjkfds (joke)
#pokemon#pokemon frlg#frlg#pokemon leafgreen#pokemon leaf green#long post#kiki plays games#kiki.txt#kiki was here#lg playthrough#entei
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to the world! (interlude)
minatozaki sana x soccerplayer!reader (pt.2) ; fluff ; angst if you really squint
synopsis: winter is finally here bringing in colder air and the new year is also beckoning, calling for bittersweet endings in trade for promising beginnings. what would you do if the dreams you deeply desired were right at your doorstep?
wc: 12.7k
warnings: a little overboard with the soccer exposition (but i gave a thorough explanation for you guys to understand so don’t worry) ; cursing ; pacing is a bit slow for this part sorry ; mentions of food ; slightly suggestive (?) ; lots of guy names but the reader is gender neutral ; i badly need sana period.
pt.1 pt.3 pt.4
a/n: the long awaited second part of the series is here!! i was debating on when i would have this posted before sana’s bday or not but the best things always come when you least expect it. ^_^
i will try to have this series updated as soon as i can, the ideas for both soccer and loving sana moments are just *chef’s kiss*
thank you guys for the overwhelming love and support in the first part and i hope this one gets the same treatment if not more!!
(also, credit for inspiration goes to @spidergirlanon ft. jihyo! please give that a read as well!!!)
enjoy!!
—
“you’ve garnered a lot of attention with your showing at the academy exit trials.” the finely dressed woman said to you, kim sejong, a representative with one of the soccer clubs who are vying for your signature. you sat in between your parents whereas sejong was sitting across the dining table, dex standing alongside sejong facing you, wearing a smug look on his face.
“i assume that dex has mentioned my name to you at least,” sejong started off saying, looking at dex who glanced quickly at her and back, nodding his head as he was still paying attention as you recalled the brief moment of dex mentioning that he was talking to someone when he visited one of your practice sessions about a couple days ago.
“yes, i remember,” you said as you scratched your temple, “i know that he couldn’t disclose the specifics of who or what he talked about on the phone, but he did bring up your name to me.” sejong flashed a smile as she slid over a clipboard that had a preliminary contract draft that showed all of the different clauses that you would have to follow eventually when signing the real one.
you always talked about it with dex and some of your teammates, about how you could go from watching the premier league and champions league matches from your room or couch to actually being on the field playing in front of thousands of fans. some thought that you were crazy while others stood behind you. the hard work and dedication along with the burgeoning talent oozing out didn’t not go unnoticed as now you had two contract offers from two teams. you had to pinch yourself when dex said the two teams that were interested.
the first team to have serious interest in your talents was brighton and hove albion f.c, a team that has gained a huge reputation for finding young, upcoming players in uncommon parts of the world and turning them into absolute monsters. you were amazed with the work that they did with the previous players that used to play for the club that went on to bigger clubs later in their career. dex claimed that their development program was on par with the other teams with the likes of pep guardiola and jurgen klopp who always had an opportunity to show the youth talent in the premier league so it was pretty convincing and high praise to say the least.
as for the second team, you didn’t think that they would have the slight bit of interest in you or your talents, but wow you were so wrong. the team that you supported all the way back when you first kicked a soccer ball; manchester united, the club with the most decorated trophy cabinets with two champions leagues and twenty league titles to their name. the very same club that chanted those famous names you’ve heard and watched growing up: beckham, keane, giggs, van persie, rooney, and ronaldo. the inner voice in your head would’ve said to sign for united in a heartbeat.
but you knew that it wasn’t gonna be that simple to do.
“i know that we can’t disclose the other team that approached you for confidentiality reasons, but the development coach has seen your match videos and is captivated with what you can potentially bring to the team moving forward.”
sejong adds as you sat there with a dumb look on your face, “i hope you can take our offer into consideration y/n, your name and reputation precedes what you can achieve in the future as a player.”
“is there a grace period for when i can make my final choice?”
“no, not at all! negotiations wise, we can agree to terms here in principle. consider this to be the first round of talks so nothing is entirely set in stone yet,” sejong answered with a firm sense of persuasiveness.
you leaned back in your seat as you looked at both your mom and dad who were simply nodding at you, reminding you of the support they always had for your soccer career. you looked down at the contract draft, amazed with the fine printed text font filling the paper with the club badge sitting in the middle at the top of the paper. this was nothing like the paper you signed when you first joined coach rain’s soccer club, the same club that won back to back titles in your time there.
it wasn’t an “all you” show however, as there were also a few talented players on the team that were also candidates at the trial. both your teammates rin and blake who attended the trials with you gave high praises when the other potential candidates asked about you because they were afraid to approach you, which was odd because you knew that you were able to socialize with others but you simply played it off while those who did talk to you tried not to freak out internally.
nothing but positive remarks were said in not only how extremely gifted the way you played, but also how you led the team to those winning titles as well. you wondered if those two got offers from teams as you looked at dex who came back with a contract that you assumed was manchester united’s offer to you.
before you could say anything though, sejong’s phone vibrated, “sorry, i have to take this. you can continue to look at the offer while i’m gone.” she said as she stood up from the table and headed outside your house to answer the call.
dex took sejong’s seat as he slid manchester united’s contract over to you next to brighton’s with a smile plastered on your face still. “this is still a really good thing y/n! i knew you had a major pull at the trials with your overall ranking but i didn’t think it would be this big of a deal!” dex said to you as you smiled right back trying to relish in the moment right in front of you.
“i know but just wow, i’m actually really surprised that they would actually offer-”
“you’re not the only client to get an offer from brighton especially.” dex added, “rin is actually overseas right now finishing up the final terms.”
“oh my gosh he’s signing with brighton?!” your mom asked with a hand covering her mouth.
“i just got off the phone with him before coming here! they just finished the last round of talks, now it’s only a matter of time before they announce the signing in the next few days.” dex replied showing a picture of rin signing the contract.
“holy shit.” you couldn’t believe that one of your teammates was bound for the premier league. out of the thirty candidates at the exit trials, you and rin both took the top two rankings. that didn’t necessarily mean that you and him had a better chance at offers but it definitely increased the likelihood of teams looking more closely at you and rin.
“you don’t have to make a decision now of course, but i know that you’re aware of both teams' situations in the league currently.” dex chimed in as he put his phone back in his pocket while you switched between the two contracts laid in front of you.
you and dex kept a close eye on what was happening in the premier league between brighton and manchester united. your mind was listing the facts but your heart already made the decision of which team you were going to sign with.
midway through the premier league season, both teams are sitting at fifth and sixth place respectively, with brighton taking the fifth spot with a five point gap ahead of manchester united. brighton had just lost one of their key midfielders recently to an acl injury and are looking to fill that hole in as soon as they can to ensure their push for a high finish in the league table with the prospect of playing in a european competition next season.
you were amazed at what roberto de zerbi was envisioning over there and you knew that you could gain a lot if you played under him. you were also following the narrative that was building over them about being on a tear the last few weeks by winning against the more bigger teams in the league that they’ve already played at least once so far this season. by playing for brighton, this meant more chances to play and really get some solid minutes of soccer under your belt.
as for manchester united, the inner child inside your head was screaming to take up their offer, but you toned down the fangirling as you ran through the current progression of your favorite team. they weren’t doing too bad, nor were they doing as good as you wanted them to be. they were also struggling in every aspect; from the back, the midfield, and even the attack all seemed to be lackluster combined with no set of direction on the field.
not only that, but it was becoming a depressing trend of decline happening behind the scenes in terms of the board and management that was riddled with a new story filled with drama week in and week out. it sucked that your team was being mauled over by greedy owners that are only using the team as a business brand rather than a soccer team that was meant to win trophies.
you looked at the different clauses on the manchester united contract, sighing with a disheartening expression on your face realizing that you’d be signing your own death sentence for your career before it even started. the money was good, but you had a mantra of how it was never about the money, but by having a big paycheck you would have little to no playing time in return.
you were fond of manager erik ten hag’s glory days with ajax with that remarkable champions league semi-finals run a couple years ago, but this was manchester united, a team that is always subject to expectations, and even a good manager like him was struggling to get the gears running with the team.
sitting sixth in the league heading into the winter portion of the season and out of the champions league competition, they could really only focus on getting a high finish in the league while also dealing with the numerous injuries all throughout the squad. sure you could get playing time, but you also remember the various players that had a youthful upstart at manchester united only to have their career go sideways and you didn’t want to follow that same path.
“i know it’s your favorite team y/n, but you see the stability of how they are right now. it’s not great for what you can do with other teams.”
“but out of all the possible teams, it’s just these two? there’s really no other option for me?" you asked dex as he crossed his arms, tapping his finger on top of his left arm while you continued to read through the contracts once again.
“it’s normal to have second thoughts, i can also give you the option to wait until the window opens in january for more teams to approach you.” dex states, “but knowing you already it’ll be impossible to keep you here when i have phone calls coming in at six in the morning!” you and your parents laughed at your best friend’s remark as you looked at your mom who was slapping your arm while your dad got up to get a glass of water for everyone.
a light hearted moment lit up the house once again. as the laughter died down while sejong came back from her prolonged phone call, wearing a perplexed look on her face filled with curiosity as dex looked over, shooting straight back up from the chair for her to sit as he stood over her again, exchanging smiles with you as a reflection of the rapport that you and him have built from when you were kids.
“i assume everything went well with the discussion?” sejong asks, looking at the second contract on her left side in confusion, which left dex to grab it quickly and put it behind his back. “sorry, sorry.” dex said looking all dumb now, “we were just going over his options while you were out and-”
“you’re good dex don’t worry.” you said to him comfortingly, returning your look towards sejong across from you. “i’ve carefully considered your offer and i’m really pleased with what you’ve presented to me.” you firmly said with a sense of professionalism that even the big time hot-shot young players wished they would have.
a slight bit of suspense spread across the dining room and kitchen as your dad overhead you, racing back to sit next to you as sejong leaned in with an intrigue to what you were about to say, “oh really? what that might be?”
you looked at both of your parents, who knew that you weren’t a kid anymore as you looked at dex with a simple nod to him as you inhaled through your nose with the next set of words marking another monumental step towards your blossoming soccer career.
“i think i’ve made my decision on who i’m signing with.”
—
*ping* *krsch*
you huffed out a puff of warm air from your mouth as you steadily stood up after belting a ball into the top corner of the goal, getting a sound of amazement by someone standing next to you as you backed up with another ball for the next shot.
“is there anything you can’t do y/n?” kang daniel asked, juggling a ball while you racked in another goal for the fourth time. this one being a knuckleball that wobbled in the air for a few seconds before deflecting off of the goalpost and inwards.
“apparently beckham freekicks aren’t my specialty.” you chimed as you rolled another ball from your bag, checking to see if it was properly pumped up with air,“even for someone like me that’s seen to be a so-called midfield general.”
daniel laughed at your self observation as he too shot a ball in short distance, lightly jogging back to you, rolling another ball towards you to kick aside as you prepped up for another shot.
“if i had an inkling of your talent and skills, i would’ve made it to the lineup but instead coach has me playing sixth man off the bench.” daniel said with a slight bit of disappointment in his voice.
“hey, your playstyle actually helps with buildup play in the final third. mingyu is a solid makeshift centre back turned defensive mid, but his long balls are way too powerful for dk and shotaro to link up on the wings.”
“ooof, glad he isn’t here to hear that!” you look over to see dk’s arm wrapped around your shoulder, cheesing a smile before waving at daniel and his girlfriend jihyo next to the goal keeping his soccer bag against the fence.
“you’re late as always.” you said as you elbowed dk’s stomach, getting an instant flinching reaction from him as he set his bag down on the field.
“i thought we were just shooting for fun today!? did i miss the memo in the group chat?!” dk asked in confusion as daniel laughed at dk’s distress. even though there was no practice since coach rain out of town to help one of his close friends oversee some trials with another soccer club, you still thought it’d be a good idea to fill the time during the week to at least play for one day or two.
“y/n!!! these shots aren’t helping me!!” you look towards the goal to see a girl laying face flat with her head looking in your direction. “tzuyu if you’re gonna say that you got the goalie position by just dumb luck then say it!” you shot back as she stood up, clapping her hands together telling you to bring it on. you look at daniel and nodded as he took another shot only for tzuyu to parry it away off the right side.
“see?! you can handle our shots!” you laughed with pride while jihyo was sitting close to the goal cheering at tzuyu's play. “more of that please!” tzuyu yelled back as she stretched her arms for another shot lining up. “alright tzuyu take a quick break. i don’t want your hands to be beet red by the end of our sesh.” you said as she nodded while taking off the gloves and went towards jihyo before meeting up with everyone else sitting on the edge of the box.
you sat down to take a quick swig of water while daniel was walking towards jihyo and tzuyu. as for dk, he slipped out of his shoes into his new adidas boots that he bought yesterday to break them in.
“wasn’t hyunjin gonna be here today?” dk asked. “i thought so too.” daniel also replied now with jihyo under his left arm.
“didn’t he tease you about sana at the end of practice the other day?” dk also asked, now sitting with his new boots on his feet. you were taken aback by his question as you choked on your water bottle in response.
“i- yes and no!” you spat out, wiping your mouth of the drops of water that dribbled over your chin. you heard nothing but laughs and gasps as you try to recover from your embarrassing act.
you really need to get a grip, but at the same time you wanted to take pride somehow and soon.
“don’t try to play it off y/n, i’ve seen how you look at sana at school.” dk said as he flashed an eyebrow at you, “i didn’t notice at first but now i’m invested to see what’s all that about.”
“i swear to you, there’s nothing happening between us! i don’t know why everyone is saying that there is!” you defended yourself as you put your hands up slightly, claiming your innocence. “jihyo, you know how sana is with you guys so help my case here!” jihyo’s eyes popped open as she sat down with tzuyu doing the same, “sana is normally friendly with everybody here, but you’ve known her longer than i have so i wouldn’t know what it’s like.”
you hung your head in defeat as daniel hovered over you, placing his hands on your shoulders in comfort, “don’t feel bad y/n, you know that’s just how hyunjin is anyway.” you look up to daniel who was smiling as he stopped his little massage, pulling both of his hands back into his track jacket. “i am curious however, is there something happening between you and sana that we don’t know about?”
“no there isn’t.” you sighed out, “what we have is really a platonic friendship, there’s no romance attached between us.” you stated even though you were also lying through your teeth, just partly, but you looked around the set of eyes placed on you as you fished your water bottle back into your bag.
“booo, that’s the wrong answer ow-” dk exclaimed as jihyo smacked his head, shutting down his antics completely.
“sorry y/n, we didn’t mean to pressure you or anything,” jihyo apologized as daniel sat down next to her, leaning his head on her shoulder while jihyo tilted her head to the left to meet with daniel’s.
“it’s fine you guys, i’m not one to talk about anything love related anyway…” you replied back looking at the lovely couple sitting across from you.
“i’m sure there’s someone for you y/n, we’re just saying that sana is literally the top candidate for you so i don’t know what needs to happen there, ” jihyo said as you simply nodded, oblivious to what you were thinking. you were aware that you alone would be the clear person sana would want to be in a relationship with. nobody else was in the running for her.
the problem is, you were running out of time to carry out the feelings you held within you for so long since you’ll be going away when the new year rolls around. nobody here knew that you accepted the offer to play professional soccer in england, until all of you heard a voice coming from the benches.
“hey! did i miss the shooting clinic!?”
the group looked at each other in question as everyone turned their attention to a single figure making their way closer to the edge of the eighteen yard box. “where have you been man? i called you twice today?!” you screamed out as you shot straight up to dap up blake in a hug, who you haven’t seen since the exit trials.
“i got backed up with traffic on the way here, but i see that you guys took a break so technically i made it on time.”
“that’s what happens when you wake up late dude!” you retort, breaking the hug with one of your well known teammates of three years. “how else am i gonna carry over the passes to the forwards if my left-back can’t even wake up on time for practices and games?!”
“yeah blake you’re always late, it’s either you or ni-ki that’s always the last one to show up for stretches!” dk shoots out, getting up to warm his legs up and rolled a ball over for him to do light movements.
“shut up dk! isn’t ni-ki our main striker up top? how did i get roped into this for already having a bad habit before the regular season started?” blake retaliates, kicking off his slides and setting his supreme bag on the ground as dk scrunched his face mischievously.
“how did the exit trials go? i heard you got fourth in the top ranking assessments!” daniel asked as jihyo and tzuyu both gasped in surprise, “speaking of which, didn’t you place high on the ranks y/n?” daniel added on, now bewildered waiting for your answer.
you and blake looked at each other, asking each other telepathically if it was okay to tell everyone what went down at the exit trials. you primed your lips back while blake pouted for a quick second before the both of you nodded at each other.
“so…all three of us got placed in the top five rankings.” blake said as a wave of gasps swept across the group. daniel and dk’s mouths dropped to the floor in shock as jihyo and tzuyu shrieked in celebration, proud of what their friends just achieved by the announcement they just heard.
“no way, even rin got a high rank!?” daniel asked in astonishment, “yep, i got placed fourth while rin took the second spot out of the thirty candidates.” blake continued as you scrunch your nose while smiling since you knew that blake had lost a bet between rin about who would be placed higher in the trials, the others weren’t aware of that since rin wasn’t here but in england using his remaining vacation break sightseeing through london, sporadically sending you and blake pictures of the football stadiums that were there.
“wait, if rin got a higher rank than you blake, where did y/n place?” dk asked, staring at you with laser focus, “i think it would be better for y/n to break the news to you guys.” blake brightly said as he looked towards you as everyone was left in question for your unknown position to be answered. you simply put both of your hands in your pockets and inhaled a breath before exhaling to build suspense.
“i was the one who got the top ranking spot….” you declared as everyone collectively was left in complete disbelief. the choir of “huhs” and “what” broke through the air as you jaws dropped and hands on mouths while blake simply looked down smiling at their reactions. it took a couple moments to process what you just said as you nonchalantly juggled a ball before anyone said anything.
“i don’t know why i was expecting someone else to take the top prospecting spot, but jesus christ y/n!”
“are we really that surprised with what he’s capable of? this dude is literally our fucking captain for a reason!?”
you smiled at both daniel and dk’s compliments as blake crossed his arms, now in his nike boots tying them up with double knots on both feet. tzuyu and jihyo were left speechless, they too had seen the games you guys have played and it was always an enjoyable show to watch because of how unbelievably good everyone was at what they did with you, blake, and rin included.
—
there were a few instances where the girls took every opportunity to come to any practices to watch you guys go through drills or five on five scrimmages and even the coaches jabbed jokes towards you and the rest of the team grabbing all the ladies.
“we didn’t have this much interest back when we were playing!” coach key said as rain was practically laughing his ass off after seeing the entourage of girls just sitting at the bleachers during one of the practices a month or two ago.
the team was running through some one-two passing drills with shooting as the finisher and ni-ki just went ahead of you. before you could do the drill, you quickly glanced over at the bleachers to see who showed up this time.
there was jihyo, nayeon, tzuyu, mina from chem class, momo had just walked over a second later, and of course sana, who looked extra cute wearing those slightly thick nerdy glasses again which were a backup pair since she forgot her go-to pair at home that day.
again, you got caught in sana’s ethereal features for a few seconds as you got struck in the back of the head with a ball by dk snapping your attention facing forward as coach rain was barking at you.
“what the hell are you staring at y/n?! you’re holding the line up lets go!!.”
“shit…” you mutter as ran ahead while dk, mingyu, and blake chuckled at you while completing the drill. after drilling the ball past rowoon in goal, you walked back scratching your nose, still embarrassed with what you did.
“is something the matter y/n? you look a little more pinkish than usual.” coach key asked as you furrowed your eyebrows together trying to cover the light blush, wiping your face in quick succession.
“i’m all good coach, don't worry about me.” you responded quickly.
“are you sure? i think the others say otherwise.” key says picking up on the scattered “pffts” and giggles heard behind you.
you sigh and look at your teammates with a blank expression - clearing your throat as everyone immediately shuts up, gaining another laugh from coach rain who was watching the whole thing next to key.
“that’s exactly why we made you captain of this team.” coach rain praised the present aura shimmering around you as he tapped key’s shoulder before walking away toward the half of the field to meet with the defensive coach bradley who was working some of the other reserve players.
as you lined back up for another round of drills, blake tapped your shoulder with a slight worry. which was natural for him to check up on you as he was the right hand man / vice captain of the team.
“are you good though, really?” he asked behind your ear.
“i’m fine blake it’s nothing.” you shot back, attempting to shut him down asking anymore questions.
“if you say so. kinda weird for you to act this way, i hope it’s not the girls since that would make sense-.”
“they just showed up, so i was wondering who came along this time!” you slightly raised your voice as blake chuckled at your reason.
“sure, but i don’t blame you for staring though.” blake simply said as you two continued to move up in the line. you sighed as you continued to reflect on what had happened, placing a hand on your chest as you felt a slight tug from within when you thought about sana. i’m not usually like this for some reason but why do i feel this way?
—
the short memory flashes out of your mind as dk kept asking questions to blake about the trial.
“so did you get approached by a professional team?”
thrown off by dk’s captivating question you look at blake in a slight panic as you knew the rules about transfers, especially how players aren’t allowed to disclose negotiations to individuals who are outside of the said party. blake however, didn’t fully grasp the seriousness of this as he looked back at you in confusion, only realizing what he was about to do.
“oh, we weren’t allowed to say this to anyone yet?” he asked.
“well this is news for me too soo…...” you replied back as blake was mumbling to himself, determining if it was a good idea to announce it to the group here right now or not.
“how bout’ this, if you say yours, then i’ll say mine. it’s only fair.” blake proposed after a few seconds with you puckering your lips together, tempted at the indirect dare he made.
“deal, but you go first since the vice cap gets minor priority.” you announce as everyone sitting in front of you two paid close attention. “so to double down on dk’s question, did you get signed by anybody?”
“i did.” blake announced, “but it’s with a team in germany.” wow, you didn’t see that coming as you were suddenly interested to see where he was going.
“it’s frankfurt.” he continued, “the aaronson twins are there too getting some playtime so it won’t be as boring.”
“i bet they’re still salty they lost to us in the finals.” daniel butted in after hearing the last bit from laying down on the grass.
“that was a year ago anyway so i doubt it.” you acknowledged as jihyo and tzuyu clapped their hands, proud of blake’s announcement, showering him with “woops” and “yays.”
“alright now it’s your turn y/n, did you get signed?” daniel asked now with everyone listening in once again.
“I actually did just yesterday.” you proclaim as everyone gasped in a slight shock with how fast the process was.
blake tilted his head in genuine wonder, “okay, now you’ve got me over here thinking, by who!?”
“brighton, it’s brighton.” you said in a serious tone.
“no shot…” dk said as a jolt went through his body that caused him to drop his water bottle.
“wait, you’re gonna be playing in the prem?” daniel now with a distressed tone to his question.
“yep.” you said simply, “who would’ve thought huh?”
“a straight ticket to the premier league? what the fuck are you y/n a robot?” blake questioned as he shot back up with the fingers on his right hand kneading his forehead, still trying to relish in your announcement.
“so that’s like the best of the best in terms of competing?” jihyo asked as tzuyu was just left speechless.
“it’s one of the top five leagues across europe! they’re super competitive over there!” dk exclaimed as he was visibly shaking in his hands, trying to calm down in a frantic motion. you waved your hands in an up and down motion towards dk, trying to make him return to his normal breathing state as everyone wanted to know more details about your announcement that you were supposed to keep under wraps.
“there’s still some things left to be worked out with the contract, the bottom line is that they want me over there to start playing as soon as possible.” you continued as everyone pulled their attention back.
“yeah it would make sense for them to make a move since enciso will be out for the season indefinitely right?” blake asked, “i read that he’ll be undergoing surgery for his acl rupture.”
“i also watched some of his matches and considering your playstyle is very similar to his, brighton have done wonders with their scouting once again!” daniel added in exhilaration.
“exactly.”
“who else knows about this?” tzuyu asked, who had been quiet for a majority of the conversation.
“aside from my parents, there’s you guys and rin that’s all.” you answered.
“have you told sana about this yet? does she know about the whole academy trial thing?” daniel asked as jihyo ooohed next to him, bumping his arm.
“she knows about the whole trial thing but-” you stopped for half a second. shit. your mind panics at the fact that you haven’t broke the news to sana yet. before your thoughts could fall into defcon 1 protocols,
“i was gonna tell her but she stayed over at momo’s place going over their japanese project for class,” you said as you scratched your head, saving your own skin from any additional suspicion.
“ah i see.” dk replied again, now itching to get some shots up as he continued to roll a ball around his feet. picking up on this, you clapped your hands together and coughed slightly.
“alright! what are we sitting and standing here for? i thought tzuyu needed practice against us shooters!?” tzuyu looked shocked as she shot immediately straight up, bolting for the goal collecting laughs from everyone because of her eagerness.
as everyone starts to get up from the grass with soccer balls rolling about, blake walks over to you and clasps your shoulder,
“so if things play out this season, i bet we’ll play against each other in one of the european competitions.” he vexed as you scoffed at his interesting speculation.
“who knows, i’d smoke you anyway! do i have to remind you about our one v ones?”
blake cocked his head at your remark before patting your shoulder again, acknowledging that you were the one always winning in the end when it came to competing between you and him.
“we’re getting food after this right?” he asked.
“if everyone else is down then yes.”
—
a jazzy tune is softly blasting on the speakers as your mom hummed to the speaker while cooking you dinner. you were sitting on the kitchen island with your laptop watching the highlights of the manchester city vs chelsea game from earlier, which was a thriller with both sides sharing four goals each at the end of added time.
you had a journal out in front of you that was a birthday gift from sana from last year while she was out of town for the week visiting her aunt when you got randomly sick despite being perfectly fine the day before. go figure. she also wrote a short note on the first page when you opened the journal which makes you crack a small smile every time you read it.
“to my superstar y/n, i hope this journal will be an extension of myself and my heart for you to pen your thoughts. enjoy the cute koala plushie i picked out for you as well as some of the other favorite things i got that you love. happy birthday again baby and i’ll see you very soon.”
xoxo ~ sha <3
even if she had an astonishing way of words, she still made sure to put a touch of flirting any chance she could. sana was the only person who had access to this journal besides its writer and you intend to keep it that way. flipping through the pages of your journal that was filled with paragraphs of your thoughts and feelings, or reflections of past soccer matches with a mix of sana’s doodles here and there whenever you two would be hanging out or studying.
the latest entry you wrote in was the contract offer as well as your own thoughts about the whole situation. nothing too extreme as you were excited and happy that this path was now forming as you were walking on it, but you wrote wondering if it would be too late to somewhat confess to sana before going overseas. the chances are good–but why was the risk holding you back?
you snapped out from staring at your journal when you hear dex singing the same song coming from the speaker as he walked into the kitchen / dining area. turning around to give him a quick dap before hugging your mom who had just finished cooking.
“well if it isn’t my big time client now!” dex exclaimed as he made his way back to you, clawing your head with both of his hands playfully as waved your left arm over to make him stop, laughing at his infectious approach.
“did you forget that you’re always on the clock when you come here?” you asked.
“hey! even agents need to have their time off so bite me.” dex shot back, wearing a yeezy gap hoodie that you gifted to him as a christmas gift paired with washed baggy jeans with slim shoes. you and dex always had a fashion off over who had the better outfit, but usually it’d be all even between you two because of how similar the clothing styles you rocked.
“how’s your mom dex?” your mom asked as he slid a plate of homemade tacos over for you and dex to eat.
“she’s doing well actually! my mom says congrats to y/n for getting the contract thanks to yours truly.” he replied as he bowed at the end of that sentence which earned a laugh from your mom as he got the sauces from the cabinet.
you closed your journal and put it away in your bag while your laptop was showing another premier league match that caught dex’s attention as he sat down, reaching over for a taco.
“i hate how you practically live here.”
“oh shut up y/n, it’s not my fault that your house is directly right across from mine.”
you chuckled at his argument as you too grabbed a taco to eat, your mom placing glasses of water for the both of you. “thank you mrs. l/n!” dex said as your mom just simply hummed in response before walking towards the dining table to finish her teacher related work.
“so when are we leaving for england?” you asked, finishing a bite of your taco as dex took a swig of water.
“our flight is on the third of january, so just right after new years,” dex replied as you looked slightly puzzled while nodding.
“they’re still trying to iron out the details with the league, but your official documents are set to be signed within the first two weeks following your arrival.”
you sighed at the realization once again, the mixed feeling of accomplishment and disbelief cooled over your body.
“i still can’t believe we made it…after everything that we’ve been through together…” you sniffed, internalizing the countless hours of practicing and games along with the decisions that carried the guilt of sacrifice in order to make it this far.
hanging your head down with a slight dejection, dex smacked your back, cheering your mood up as he saw a goal being scored. “oh shit!-my bad y/n.” he yelled, realizing that he spaced out from your laptop, proceeding to give you light taps on your shoulder this time.
“don’t get all sappy now, we aren’t even in the good parts yet!” dex said as he continued to comfort you while eating another taco he grabbed.
“we’re about to enter a whole new echelon of your dreams.”
“that’s what i’m afraid of…”
“don’t be, you’re not giving me enough credit for getting you signed as it is anyway!”
“i will literally toss your ass out of this house if you don’t shut up! leeching off of me like your life depended on it!” you cried out chuckling as dex laughed at your banter towards him, cooling off after a few seconds.
“so have you talked to sana about it?” dex asked.
“i haven't been able to, she’s been staying at momo’s since tuesday but we’ve been texting.” you replied showing an image that sana sent to you of momo laying flat next to the couch with the coffee table plastered with papers and stationary items.
“she said she’ll be back home tomorrow hopefully.” you gleamed putting your phone flat on the table.
“her birthday is coming up no?” dex asked quizzically.
“it is.”
“do you have anything in mind you want to do for her this year?”
“nope, not in the slightest.” you replied leaning back facing up to the ceiling.
you and dex sit in silence with the roar of the crowd blasting through your laptop speakers. a few seconds later and you jolt your head forward with a lightbulb going off in your brain. dex picks up on your sudden action and conveys a “hmm~”
“you thought of something, didn't you?”
“indeed i did, i need your help along with a few others.”
—
not to your surprise, sana didn’t come back the next day. she stayed a little bit longer at momo’s until that friday at the end of the week, claiming that the project had to be redone because momo had a completely different prompt than the actual one they were supposed to do.
you couldn’t help but laugh at sana’s reason since she sounded like a little kid complaining that they didn’t get what they wanted at the local grocery store, looking at her with more admirability than usual as you laid on her couch with your left arm draped over sana’s left shoulder while she was sitting on the floor, various makeup items scattered across the coffee table as the tv was on playing blues clues out of all shows she could’ve watched.
“when i told you that momo messed up big time, i meant she messed up big time.” sana said, who complained about the small incident of starting the project over since momo basically procrastinated the whole assignment altogether.
while she was doing that, you couldn’t help but laugh at her slight distress as she was scrounging up scattered items on the table and next to her.
“well good thing she had you as a partner otherwise she would’ve failed that project regardless.” you said as you sat up, scooching over to the perpendicular end of the table to get your fruit tea drink from chae’s.
sana leans her head back on the seat, sighing with a slight ache in her voice as she finished her last minute gift for an event you had to drive her to. you didn’t have any plans anyway so even if you did, sana’s event that she was invited to was strictly girls only-which meant that you didn’t have to dress casually as you wore a dark blue fleece sweater with baggy black sweats in comparison to sana who sat there wearing low waisted jeans with a cropped shirt, she had one more article of clothing behind her and slipped it on, which turned out to be one of your old soccer jerseys in tandem with a grey long sleeve under it as an additional layer.
“so what time are we supposed to leave for this so-called party?” you asked as sana kept shuffling around stuff around her.
“we’ll leave in a bit, i just have to-oh wait! you think you can help me with some makeup really quick?” sana inquired as you looked at her with a small surprise to her question. “what do you mean, help? you have some of the things here already why can’t you do it yourself?” you protested as you matched her height by sitting on the floor with her.
“most of the makeup i need is up in my room! i don’t need to do much i just need your help with one thing!” sana shot back as you limped your body at her while she whined at your action.
“y/nnnn, do me this one favor pleaseeeeee?!” sana pleaded, making her voice babyish to appease you.
you groaned at her adorable act, knowing that she’ll always have her way no matter how big or small the task was.
“fine since you don’t want to do it for me, i’ll do it myself then.” she mumbles.
“wait sana no, that’s not what i meant.”
“it sure sounds like that to me, y/n.” sana says with a pout directly at you.
“just come scoot over and i’ll help you.” you ordered.
“nope! you said that you didn’t want to, so there goes your chance.” sana retorted. claiming her small victory as she smiled proudly.
you huffed out a heavy sigh of hair as you reached over to grab a lip brush that was on the table in front of you. sana looks at you, questioning what you were trying to do as you sat back on the floor again now with your left knee upwards parallel to the leg of the coffee table. shifting your upper body soon after and reaching with your arm to grab sana’s wrist, pulling her towards you while sana was caught off guard with your action. you overestimated your used strength as sana almost toppled you over, bracing herself by placing her left hand on your knee. the arm you pulled her with was almost all the way back, putting her face just mere inches away from yours, breaths hitching for just a slight second at the sudden closeness.
“sorry.” you mutter, loosening your grip on her wrist.
“it’s okay, i just need a touch up of lip blush, that's all.” sana mumbles as she adjusts herself more steadily. nodding at her request, you propped yourself up, extending a pinky to her jaw as you prepared to brush her lips.
tension hung in the air as you carefully took your time with sana’s lips, ensuring that there was no missing spot as you added a little more blush. her lips were amazingly perfect, almost a perfect oval shape with every nuance in both her upper and lower lip made it seemingly sculptured flawlessly. the pounding of your heart rang in your ears more loudly than usual, making you make accidental eye contact for a millisecond. sana catches you staring as you tilted your head left and right as a poor cover, stopping for a second to lock with her eyes-giving you a seductive smirk as your face exploded with redness. few more moments passed as you ensured her lips were properly touched up, placing the brush down back on the coffee table, content with your work.
“done.” you simply say. cheeks still flushed as you place your fingers under sana’s chin, checking if there were any mistakes, not noticing that sana’s cheeks were flushed pink as well.
sana makes eye contact with you again as you return her stare with your lips slightly agape, silence filling the room as you and here were staring into each other for the nth time. sana blinks twice, inching closer and closer to your face before your phone vibrated, indicating a call from either dex or your mom most likely.
sana then gets up as you answered the phone who turned out to be nayeon, who was asking where you and sana were, indicating that sana would be late for the start of the party. after a quick interrogation over the phone, you ended the call and headed toward the kitchen where sana was, preparing a small batch of brownies she baked to bring for the party.
you saw her shuffle the foil around the container as you stood across behind the kitchen island, staring at the back of her head while internalizing her small but cute stature.
“sha.” you called out to her, the nickname that very few people know her by, you having the most exclusivity to it however.
sana turns around, stopping whatever she was doing to give her full undivided attention to you, ensuing that this was something serious that you were about to tell her.
“yes y/n?” sana asked with a slight worry on her face. you chuckled at her expression, waving your hand in response. “it’s nothing bad i promise.-” you said to add more suspense, sana tilts her head in anticipation of what you were going to say to her.
“i got a contract offer for a team.”
sana’s eyes shot wide open at your news.
“i know the timing of this is weird and all, but-”
you were cut off suddenly as sana jumped at you, exclaiming in noises that could only be seen as happy and delight. your hands found their place on her waist as she tightly wrapped her arms around your neck.
“you should’ve told me sooner!!! that’s great news y/n!!!” sana exclaimed as she mushed your face with her hands, bursting out in laughter immediately after as she went for another hug with you holding her tightly this time.
she stays stuck to you for what feels like over a minute, but eventually she loosens herself off of you and stands in front of you, hand latched to hers.
“sorry for not telling you sooner sana, i just had to make sure it was all official before you know, announcing it and all.”
“it’s okay, you have your rules so i understand.” sana replies back with a smile still on her face.
“you do know what this means right? you asked, “we talked about if i did get a contract somewhere i would have to-”
“i know.” sana states firmly, knowing the gravity of your situation, “you explained it to me a while back so you don’t have to worry.” you dropped your shoulders at the thought you just spoke out, but you brushed that off aside with a sharp inhale before clicking your tongue.
“should we get going?” you asked sana again as she hummed in response to you, realizing that you’ve spent a little too long stalling sana away from nayeon’s girls night party as the two of you grabbed the essential items you needed before heading out the house.
—
a week passes and sana sits at her desk placing her legs on the bed in lieu of her usual footrest sitting below her which she found more comfortable. it’s just past noon and sana had just finished eating her late birthday lunch with her mom and dad downstairs who were cleaning up around the kitchen.
she scrolls through her phone at the multitude of notifications of birthday texts and birthday reposts on social media stories, making an effort to reply to almost all of them as she continues to tap away on her phone. her phone dings as she quickly swipes through the apps to see who had texted her, eyes widening at the message she just received.
y/n
happy birthday sha sha~ !
just finished practice, will come over later.
sana smiles like a fool at the text, noticing the nickname you coined for her back in middle school that only came up for sentimental moments like these as she presses her thumbs on the touchscreen.
sana
sounds good!
not going anywhere today
can’t wait to see you againnnn
y/n
shut up, you literally saw me last night
did i not drop you off after our boba run with momo and seungkwan???
sana
my bad not remembering, sorry
y/n
i live on the right of you i-
forget it lol
sana lets out a small laugh before switching back to reply to more stories on instagram, only to be interrupted by her mom calling from downstairs.
“sana! you have some visitors!” sana’s mom yells as the doorbell rang for a second time. “coming!” sana says as she speeds down the steps, opening the door wide open only to be surprised by the girls.
“surprise!”
“you guyssss.” sana whines as she was startled at the sudden appearance of momo, nayeon, jihyo, and dahyun who had various small items that looked like sweets and presents, with dahyun holding a small bouquet of lotus flowers as sana’s hands cover her mouth. a quick exchange of hugs as the four of them were invited in to chill for a little bit, conversing about the gifts that the girls gave to sana
“did you guys plan this?” sana asks jihyo, who was the natural leader of the friend group.
“well not exactly, but i did help with some of the stuff.” jihyo replied as nayeon nudged herself next to her on the couch.
“there’s more where that came from just letting you know.” nayeon adds in as sana wore a puzzled look on her face.
“what do you mean more?” she asks as the whole group of girls are startled by the sudden sound of the window - which turned out to be jeongyeon as she laughed hysterically, followed by a couple more people after her
“jeong you can’t scare us like that!” momo exclaims as the door opened revealing dk, bang chan, jeongyeon, miyeon, and dex. the living room flooded with hand daps, hellos, and hugs as there were quick exchanges of how everyone was doing.
“you should’ve thrown a party sana!” bang chan exclaims as he hugged sana, moving side to side since it had been ages since she last saw him.
“what are you doing here?! i thought you weren’t coming home until next week!? she “angrily” said with a light voice, punching his arm as bang chan laughed, “well surprise!!” going in for another hug after not seeing her close family friend for a long time since he was abroad or his studies.
“is that everyone?” mingyu asked, looking at the abundance of people now sitting in the living room.
“i think so, this is it for now.” jihyo replied, sipping a glass of water and placing it back on the coffee table as the room filled up with more talking. sana sees dex heading on his way out the door, stopping him as he was about to answer his call.
“where’s y/n?” she asked, with a worried pout in her voice. dex chuckled at sana’s antic, “she said that something came up, so i’m going to help her real quick.” sana nodded as she hugged dex again, thanking him for coming over to the surprise gathering before going back to the group to take pictures that her mom was offering as dex walked out the door. sana glances out the window, wondering if you were going to show up later or not.
—
a couple hours had already passed and it was nearing sundown, sana went back up to her room after everyone had left almost two hours prior, having the small snacks that dahyun had brought as well as some of the cookies your mom had made for the entire group.
looking at the pastel blue sky as it started to turn pinkish toward the horizon, she couldn’t help but feel a growing hole in her chest as she trudged over to her bed, lying face flat for only a few seconds before hearing the doorbell downstairs. sana assumed that her mom would answer the door right away - only to hear her yelling for the second time today.
“sana! you have one more visitor!” her mom yells as she makes her way down the stairs again. sana wonders who would come at this hour, the thought tells her that it would be dex since he left his glasses on the coffee table after playing jenga with dk and mingyu but she could worry about that later.
her hand reaches for the doorknob and twists it, opening it to see the one person she had hoped to see all day, you.
you stood on the other side of the door wearing your glasses with one of your hands behind your back. sana tilts her head at the arm as you flashed it out - a bouquet mixed with roses and bouquets. sana gasps, putting her hands to her face at the surprise you had in front of her.
“sorry for being late, i came to pick you up.”
“where are we going?” sana asks you as you put a finger to your lips.
“shhh, you’ll see it when we get there now go get ready.” you reply back as sana turns around and dashes up to her room to get changed.
sana returns to her usual passenger princess mode as she enters the tesla. as you and her buckled yourselves into the seats, you stop for a second to fish something in the center console, grabbing a blindfold which was a sleeping mask. sana looks at you with a raised eyebrow, taking the hint that you were “implying”.
“it’s not what you think it is, you pervert.” you say as you hand the blindfold to her, sana punching your arm immediately after your dirty thought.
“hey! i didn’t even say a word!” she retorts as you chuckle at her light blush flooding on her face, humming at her answer before driving the car out the driveway. you stop the car before you even pass your house, sana looking at you with a stale expression again.
“keep that blindfold on until i tell you to take it off.” you instructed.
“is this the part where you take me to your special room like in fifty shades of grey?”
“god no, and you know i despise that movie anyway.” you immediately respond as you roll away while sana puts on the blindfold, still wondering where you were taking her.
—
the drive to your secluded spot for your special surprise to sana was filled with flirty exchanges and multiple “are we there yets” pushing you to the brink of insanity but something that you were used to with sana as you arrived in the back section of a hill facing the brimming sunset.
“we’re here.” you say as you set the tesla on park with sana looking around, blindfold on her face, laughing as she kept frantically looking with a smile on her face. you exit the car, catching dex at the spot on the hill that you and him set up together, essentially leaving him while you pick up sana on the passenger side, guiding her toward the picnic blankets.
“where are we y/n?” sana asks as she continues to walk forward, your hands placed on her waist nearing closer to where dex was standing.
“almost there just a few more steps.” you answered, finally arriving at the spot. dex rolling his eyes at you as he watched your dumb smile at the plan you devised last week.
“here we are. you can take the blindfold off now.” you told sana as she pulled down on the sleep mask, gasping at the cute picnic setup you took a couple hours to perfect. the spot on the hill had a perfect view of the sunset just before touching the horizon.
the picnic blanket had a bottle of red wine, along with a basket that had various snacks that you and sana liked when eating together. in addition there was a charcuterie with cheeses, saltine crackers, some salami, and small slices of bacon. topping it off another bouquet of flowers laid on the blanket with your portable speaker playing soft classical music.
sana was left in amazement at your surprise, hugging you tightly after, burying her head in your chest and stayed there for a moment. you signaled dex to get the last few things from his car as sana pulls away from you, “let's sit down, i have dex getting something for me really quick”
“you really planned all this for me?” sana asks as she takes in the various items that are laid out on the blanket, “i was wondering why you couldn’t come over earlier with everyone, and dex helped you?”
“yes he did, he did most of the heavy lifting well not really but still.” you reply back as dex comes back with a small bag with more snacks inside of it.
“thanks again for guarding this dex, i owe you big time.” you say as dex chuckles at you, grabbing a quick bite of the chocolates inside the bag, “oh you definitely do, the next meal we get together is gonna be on your tab.” he states, fistbumping you before leaving you two alone to enjoy your special birthday date.
“so was this everything like you imagined for a surprise?” you asked sana as she shuffled herself into your left arm, sighing in content with what you did.
“this was amazing y/n. i couldn’t have asked for anything more. thank you.” sana replies, hugging you again, inhaling the sweet cherry scent of her hair before pulling away. “are you sure we’re gonna be able to eat all of this?” she asks again, grabbing another bite of the saltine crackers as you laugh at her act.
—
after going through multiple snack bags and half the bottle of red wine, you and sana were talking about the various gifts that she received earlier in the day - how she got various gift cards from family relatives to use online and noting how she got a betty boop handbag from one of her other classmates who stole it after her modeling gig a while back. as she told these stories from earlier, you kept your attention on her with so much affection pooling through your eyes. the way that she was cutely layered with a brown overcoat with a hoodie underneath, the light breeze passing through her hair making her more ethereal than she already was.
she goes on with her tangent for a few more moments before returning eye contact with you, getting lost in your eyes before looking away, your face getting slightly red as well as hers.
“so…do you have a gift for me?” she asks, returning her gaze on you as you scrunch your face at her.
“of course i did.” you reply, fishing through your bag to get two small boxes that were black, one being longer compared to the short one that was in your right hand. sana looks at you confused, slightly anxious to see what you had for her this year.
“so i kept your present from last year into consideration.” you started off saying, opening the first box to reveal a necklace with a wax seal on it showing a simple heart with a message coating it. sana lightly screams at one of your romantic gifts as you take it out to give her a better look.
“the meaning of the wax seal means, my heart is eternally yours - given to that special someone you value everything that you are and what you do.” sana pouts at your sentence as you motion her to come around and put the necklace on her, brushing her hair onto one side to make it easier for you. soon after it’s on, she looks at it while you fish out the same necklace hidden in your crewneck to match hers.
“aw, matching necklaces? what’s the other box for?” sana playfully asks as you grab the other box from behind you, opening it to show matching rings. you smirked as sana was left speechless with her flawless guess, while you took the bigger ring out for you to wear on your right ring finger.
“matching rings, and this relates to what i’m about to say” you reply as sana leans in, now fully interested with the possible thought of what you might be doing, shifting her body closer to you as you showed her the simple but sleek ring you were wearing.
“you have been a constant pillar of support i can always rely on for as long as i remember aside from my own parents of course,” you say confidently despite your heart gradually accelerating by the second.
“i love what we have going on already between us, all the sweet and happy moments that are always filled with a brand new adventure every single day.” sana scoots even closer as you take her hand, clasping it with yours.
“whenever i’m with you, there’s a few seconds where my heart just starts beating like crazy - and at first i thought it was weird at first, but then the more and more it happens whenever its us hanging out like this or whenever we’re with everyone else and-” your mind was short circuiting as sana lightly laughs at you with your head in between your arms, you then look back up inching your face closer to sana’s, your heart pounding in your ears at 150%.
“soooo what’s your point y/n?.” sana asks you, slightly oblivious and in a slight instant — you couldn’t contain yourself any longer.
“this.” you simply replied, lightly placing your fingers under her jaw, breath slightly hitching as you leaned forward, catching her off guard as you placed your lips on hers.
sana hummed in surprise as she was unprepared, but was able to catch on kissing you right back, eyes slowly closing as she cupped your cheek. senses overloading at the new sensation acquired as you notice the slight taste of peach chapstick on her extremely soft lips and you wanted to remember how your lips fit perfectly with hers. you pull away for a second to catch your breath before sana pulls you right back in for more, tilting heads in interchanging directions as you slowed the pace of your second kiss together, taking more and more time passing as you and her try to keep this moment from ever ending. it was then sana’s turn to stop, eyes fluttering open as they meet yours as you went for another slow, intimate kiss, pulling on her left thigh to bring her closer to you as she wraps her arm around your neck, right hand tangling with your hair before sharing one more final kiss and pulling away soon after.
you finally did it, and she couldn’t be any more happier.
hands lingering on each other’s body as you stare into sana’s eyes again, lips brushing together slightly parted as your hearts could basically flatline at any given second. sana then lightly pecks your lips before placing her forehead against yours.
“two years,” sana begins saying, “two years is how long i’ve waited for you to do that.” you softly laugh at her observation. “god you’re so cute.”
the beating in your heart calms down after cashing out all of your feelings you’ve had for sana, the realization of what you did finally registering in your head as you look away from sana for a second, cheeks completely flushed before coughing because of the small specks of pollen that went up your nose.
‘i have a really bad thing with timing, so i hope this isn't too late.” you mumble, recalling what will eventually happen when the new year rolls in the next couple weeks. sana notices the tone in your voice, now worried about your expression,
“when do you leave?” she asks.
“two days after new years.” you answer, sana’s face somewhat crestfallen after hearing the news, “but we still have time until then, i just wish i did this sooner…” your voice trailed off with regret carried with it.
sana sccoches herself to you again, placing her head on your shoulder as she hugged you in comfort, sighing out at the beautiful view set in the distance while grazing her fingers on your hand.
“i think this is perfect already.” sana says to you, looking at her with a puzzled look on your face.
“really?” she hummed at your simple question.
“i’m not mad at you, nor will i ever be mad at you for anything y/n. i’m just happy that you and i can finally let out our feelings together without having reservations.”
a warm smile riddled across your face as you leaned in to press another soft peck onto her lips. sana giggles after you pull away again, grinning,
“hearing the things you say give me so much confidence, knowing that i can take on the world with my girlfriend right beside me.” you say as you stood up with your arms out wide, mimicking a goal celebration while sana laughed at your act.
not long after the first hours of the evening, you walk back sana to the front door of her house, turning around to you with inviting arms for a hug, gladly accepting the offer as you open your arms for sana to slot herself in. circling your arms around her waist as her arms hooked onto your back, your chin touching the top of your head, indicating the cute height difference between you and her like a sculpture that should be showcased as the main centerpiece of an art museum, letting the silence fill up with the brightly dimmed light sitting just above you two.
she looks up at you, pursing her lips together for a kiss as you cup her cheeks, pressing your lips onto hers again for one more smooch that was now filled with love and butterflies, pulling away staring into sana’s eyes that look like they could be filled with stars.
“best birthday present ever.” she hummed as you kissed her forehead, hugging her tightly once more before stepping back.
“had to save the best for last you know?” you amusingly as sana chuckled at your quick remark, having her head over heels for you once again as placed your hands behind your back as you walked down the steps of her house.
“let’s do something tomorrow?” sana asks as you turned back around immediately after her question.
“of course, i’m always down to do anything with you.”
—
the airport terminal was a little bit busier than usual as you stood there at the rotating door, endlessly spinning as people weaved in and out of it. this was it - “d-day” as dex called it, where you finally leave the hometown you have stayed at for almost the entirety of your life before embarking on your dream head on.
your two cases of luggage and backpack were all that you brought along with your parents who came to see you off while dex kept it simple with his single carry-on bag. dex and rin’s agent yujin had managed to come to an agreement for you and rin to live together, making it more convenient and the transition more smoothly since both of your living habits were strikingly similar.
“alright, that’s everything that we brought yeah?” dex asks you, turning to your left side facing him.
“our flight is in two hours, so i think we’ll be fine.” you reply back, pulling the handles of both of your luggages. a voice calls you from the distance, making you look the opposite direction, tilting your head at the small entourage of people approaching you; dk, mingyu, yuta, jihyo, daniel, tzuyu, han, hyunjin, dahyun, miyeon, and lastly sana.
“you guys really don’t know when to give me space do ya.” you say as you dapped up daniel as the others started to form a crowd behind him.
“don’t think you can leave without saying goodbye y/n!” dk chided, beaming his smile at you as you facepalmed at his comical stupidity. “either way, you will come back home regardless so you’ll know where we’ll be at.” he added as you nodded.
“that’s why i made you captain, i know the team will be in good hands with you leading.” you replied back as you stepped forward for a hug, patting his back firmly. you pulled back and looked at everyone else who came, content with the turnout.
“thank you guys for coming. it really means a lot to me and i promise i’l come back in once piece.” you said as you picked up a sniffle coming from tzuyu, leaving you in a small shock as you went forward to hug her in comfort. soon after everyone picks up on tzuyu crying, everybody went in for a group hug as sana was the second person after you to hug tzuyu from behind. after a few moments had passed, the group hug broke as you started to hug everyone one by one again.
“this won’t be a goodbye, but we’ll definitely see you soon in the matches!” yuta exclaimed as mingyu pulled you in for a headlock, tapping his arm frantically while everyone laughed at you struggling.
“you’ll be sending us stuff right?” jihyo asked you with an eyebrow raised at you.
“of course i will, you just gotta wait for them.” you answered as you started grabbing your luggage. most of the group had begun to go back home all except for one person–sana, who was standing in front of you with a simple smile on her face, wearing both the necklace and the other ring in her left ring finger you gifted to her on her birthday.
you pulled her in for a hug, caressing her hair as she nuzzled into your right collarbone. taking in the last whiffs of your cologne and the way your body felt on hers as she hugged you.
“i already told you that we’ll keep in touch, right?” you asked as she looks up at you with a pout that could snap your heart into multiple pieces, lip quivering slightly as you pulled her in for another hug.
the day before celebrating new years, you and her talked about how this new relationship would be handled, planning a bunch of contingencies in case one would miss the other person greatly. you and sana had spent all the time you could before this moment, doing everything possible–the only change now was the increase of skinship and small kisses that you and her shared together every chance possible when hanging out.
you and sana rarely ever fight against each other, but there were many tests and trials that would be overcomed together. a long-distance relationship would be the ultimate test for you two, the contrasting work schedules, time difference, match days, the list went on and on but you and sana were determined to make it work.
this was a completely new circumstance, you and sana were slightly worried of what might happen but were very confident in the road that lies ahead for you.
“i will miss you being around here.” sana says, tears welling up in her eyes as you wiped them off her, pulling her face in for a long kiss, wanting to not part away from her face. you then retreat your head back with thumbs massaging her cheeks.
“you probably know this, but i love you.” you say as sana laughs out, lightening up the mood as she hugs you for one last time.
“promise to call me when you get settled in?”
“you don’t even have to ask.” you say as dex taps your shoulder, “y/n, time to go.” you nodded at him as your parents handed you your luggages, giving them another loving hug with your mom fighting back tears as your dad rubbed her back.
“my baby is all grown up now.” your mom says, pressing your face together.
“ma, i’ll be back before you know it.” you say, shutting down her worries as you hug both of your parents for one last time, walking away to the rotating door of the entrance. you stopped in your tracks as dex looked at you with your back turned to him, walking up to sana to give her two more kisses, the second one being a short, subtle peck.
“i love you.” you whispered to her, your voice giving endearing confidence, “i’ll see you soon okay?”
sana nods as she lets go of your lingering arm before watching you and dex enter the spinning door, waving to sana and your parents, smiling for one last time as you walk deeper inside the concourses of the airport, europe bound, and facing forward to your lifelong dream.
#sana x reader#twice x reader#kpop x reader#twice sana#sana imagines#twice imagines#twice fluff#minatozaki sana
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The first batch of pictures for Amoré's character journal are here! Also I have been so super sick that I've literally had nothing to do but to work on this for like almost 2 weeks so...
The cover to cover tour officially starts here. All I can say about the front & back is that I lament my lack of experience with my Cricut when I made these decals. I only had 2 "fun" colors to work with at the time & I was still getting comfortable drawing in Procreate, so my silhouette art leaves a lot to be desired compared to some stuff I've made recently. I also found it's incredibly easy to burn this leather book.
But she's volume one, everything with her is a learning experience, & I realized as much as it helps to have a mini heat press for tight corners & small spaces, the cloth barrier they suggest you use between the vinyl & the iron tends to make things harder to press on this scale. So instead I gotta quickly tap straight on the transfer film & hope I don't burn anything around it :(´◦ω◦｀):ﾟﾟ
So at the risk of thoroughly exposing my inner theater kid, Amoré set the precedent with how I went forward creating campaign characters. I started off collecting 5 songs to make a mini story arc (almost like a show choir set list 🙃) that helps me figure out an outline for the kind of story I wanna give them.
Somehow Amoré ended up with a truly horrendous blend of rock & theatre. Absolutely incredibe. No wonder she's always such a dramatic bitch.
It was a lot easier to go in & add little decals around these lyrics. I'm definitely cursed with the Too Much™ gene, but I enjoy the little pops of color they give ✨ plus it justifies me hoarding all these vinyl scraps printing stuff this small lol.
Stat sheet!
In all honesty, as my first character I had no fucking clue what I was doing when I placed these & if I could go back & change one thing I'd probably swap her Intelligence & her Wisdom. She’s definitely more people smart than book smart.
But everything else is...very accurate. She has all the upper body strength of a chicken nugget. Plus on top of the (already) negative I traded disadvantage on everything DEX for magic crystal shoes that can be periodically harvested. Just a way for her to carry around the family fortune without actually having to return to the vault✨
For something that started so average, her CON became a monster & always comes in clutch for her alcohol tolerance. I've played variations of her across a few different one shots & I always manage to roll well for anything alcohol related. The dice do respect a bit 🤣
Spells on the other hand, I floundered with a lot at first because we’re not a combat heavy game, but then I found Chaos Bolt & that was that. It’s essentially Amoré in spell form & I’ve had a ton of fun with it over the years. Also Mage Armor cuz my girl is SO DISTRESSINGLY SQUISHY.
Cantrips were more or less a bit of a toss up. Message was fun for the sheer idea of her using it to talk shit during social events without being caught. But aside from Light serving fun backstory purposes the other 3 are kinda just what looked fun ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ unless you count the idea that she would absolutely delight in zapping handshakes.
From there, I wanted to extend the world map made by our wonderful DM @cappierong into a full scroll. Ya know, for the aesthetic ✨
Our campaign started in Civania, where Amoré's main Estate is. I just wanted a quick mock up to reference, so I edited a preexisting picture I found that checked all the boxes (large, on a plateau, accessible only by bridge) and then absolutely smothered it in flowers.
But anyways... This is primarily where Diana & Amoré grew up together in their decade of backstory ✨
There was probably waaaay to much back & forth trying to keep the continuity between stuff I've already drawn & this big reference. But I think it turned out pretty ok? Not like if I make a mistake anyone will really know lol.
Scaling was also another big issue I had, & I moments where I thought something was too big I just kinda handwaved it away like "ehhhhh she's from a stupid rich family." But now I have a NEED to draw baby Diana & Amoré around like, the statue gardens or something cuz I feel like certain parts of this place are definitely ominous 👀 especially for children...
And lastly we have the back cover & the High Noble political relationship map! I normally have this closer to the front but for layout purposes it'll be here. I kinda feel like I need to do more for the decoration of it but I can’t think of anything else to add at the moment.
Sam if u read that no you didn't.
But now! Other than a family portrait that I've always wanted to draw, I think I'm ready to move onto the art for Season 1 : Arc 2. It's a pretty hefty amount of art in comparison to others, so I gotta get busy. Especially since I think I'm gonna have to draw a few comics *sobs*
If you made it this far, thanks so much for reading! I'm always excited to talk out our little idiots so thanks for indulging me ❀(*´▽`*)❀
#duo rong#dungeons and dragons#dnd character scrapbook#duo chronicles#amore bellridge#diana blackthorn if you squint#dnd#dnd character#dnd pc#dnd oc#character creation#character study(?)#dnd backstory#season 1#dnd art#dnd campaign#campaign art
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could you review the turtwig line maybe?
First off, before we get into the review I have to mention that Turtwig's call is delightful. This has nothing to do with anything, I just had to give it a special shoutout.
youtube
Anyway yeah, I like Turtwig. There's something about the head that's super pleasing, what with the beak and the way the jaw is yellow, which culminates in a little knob at the side. Having the plant be on the head instead of the shell at this stage is a nice way to differentiate it from its evos, and the colors are nicely balanced; yellow on the eye, jaw, and feet, brown on the back and the head, green everywhere else. I have complaints; it's a good turtle.
Also, I like how the 'dex talks about it from a biological standpoint. Stuff like this just helps make a Pokemon so much more interesting than it already is.
Grotle is a good middle evo; it works as a transitional phase, yet has a design that's all its own without looking too terribly awkward. Starting to resemble an ankylosaur, the yellow plating is distinct, and the bushes on the back hint at what direction it's going for without being handled the same way as Torterra's vegetation. Good stuff.
My only complaints are that the ridge along the yellow looks strange; I can never shake the feeling that it's wearing a hard hat. Also, the bushes feel kind of slapped on, especially with the ridges in the back being so diminutive. Other than that, though, it does its job well.
Having a Pokemon that's just a mini-ecosystem is just inherently a neat idea, and it's even neater when you consider that it's based off of the idea of a World Turtle, except instead of having the entire world on its back it's just a nice garden.
I also love how bulky and calm it looks; it matches the slowness of a turtle and the worldliness its concept would suggest. Even little details like the asymmetry (a rare thing in Pokemon designs) help add to the biome aspect of it.
My only visual nitpick is that on the rest of the line, the jaw is a different color because it leads into the spikes on the side of the head. Here, the spikes are a different color already, so the jaw is green just Because, making the little bit of brown on the face feel unneeded and creating a disconnect with the rest of the underbelly. It would've been better just to keep the jaw brown, or even consider having the jaw be silver instead. That's not a big deal though obviously.
Anyway, as a whole, this is a solid starter line. Turtwig is cute and has some pleasing colors and neat biology, Grotle is unique enough to stand on its own, and Torterra is just a cool concept in general. Great stuff.
Final note: I know they couldn't do this because it would make it better than the other starters, but it seems like not every Torterra should have the same garden. It would've been neat if there were like 3 different forms with three different kinds of gardens (forest, Japanese, and English, perhaps) or something like that. Likewise, there was a major missed opportunity to give it a g-max, given that World Turtles are obviously massive. Expand on the garden and give it some waterfalls, more pathways, flowering blooms, etc.
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As a way to give this blog some purpose, and give myself something to do, I’ve decided to start writing out my RPG musings in my spare time. I’ve been slowly working on a campaign setting for several years now, and it’s become a little creative space for me to hammer out a hypothetical kitchen sink to throw my fantasy ideas in. I’ll probably end up using it for a Pathfinder game (where I’ll finally get to use Spheres of Power/Might, and maybe even Guile), but I’ve thought about running it with an OSR game as well. Who knows, maybe I’ll run it over several different systems. Without further ado, here’s the first installment!
Post #1: The Ottoguard
This idea was created using Ultimate Engineering, the most recent (and final) Pathfinder product for Spheres of Might from Drop Dead Studios. I contributed a bit to the playtesting and had a great time, and its author spent two years fine tuning it, so if you're interested, go support them and take a look. At the time of writing, it should also be on the SoP wiki any day now.
In the core of the setting, the city of Scalmoor treats scientific advancement like its own fom of magic. They build marvelous contraptions of steel and glass, whether powered by tightly wound clockworks or by burning coal and spewing black smoke. In this city, the law is kept by those with the most money to build the biggest toys, and one such toy is the Ottoguard.
Standing at eight feet tall, an Ottoguard is a hollow sort of mechanical construct, but bears no magic or animating consciousness like a golem. Instead, a trained fighter pilots it, wearing it as a sort of incredibly heavy armor that carries itself. Ottoguards don’t do all of the policing, usually accompanied by a few regular guards who can do things like fit into buildings, move obstacles aside, bully civilians up close and personal, and so on and so forth.
Ottoguard CR 1
XP 400
Human Warrior 3
LN Medium Humanoid (Human)
Init +2; Perception +5
Defense
AC 17; Touch 12; Flat-Footed 15; (+2 Dex, +5 Chainmail)
21 HP (3d10+6)
Fort +5 Ref +3; Will +3
Offense
Speed 20ft.
Space 5ft; Reach 5ft
Melee Sap +4 (1d6+1 nonlethal)
Ranged Light Crossbow +5 (1d8/19-20)
Special Attacks Snag (Swift action, render target battered as melee touch attack)
Statistics
Str 13, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 8
Base Atk ; CMB ; CMD ( vs. trip)
Feats Extra Combat Feat
Skills Craft (Technology) +6, Intimidate +5, Perception +5, Sense Motive +5; Racial Modifiers
Languages Common
SQ
Gear: Mwk Chainmail, Light Crossbow, Longsword, Large Crossbow, MwK Large Sap, Potion of CLW, 8 gold pieces, 13 silver pieces.
Martial Tradition: Mechaguard*
Martial Talents (2 talents from progression, 1 talent from feat)
Equipment Sphere:
Bounty Hunter’s Tools
Armor Training
Tinker Sphere: Transportation Package
Mechanical Arsenal
Transportation Mastery
Wrestling Sphere: (Constrictor Drawback)
Hammerlock
Clinch Strike
Those stats above are for if our unlucky Ottoguard pilot is caught… off-guard. They’re there to represent what’s inside the fantastic mech and what he’s trained to do in a fight, particularly specializing in nonlethal capture- even when fully kitted out he’s here to apprehend criminals, not brain them. The crossbows are just for emergencies. So let’s break down what he’s capable of as a third level warrior, namely his talents:
His Equipment Sphere talents are there solely for proficiencies, for the Sap and for medium/heavy armor. The Athletics Sphere lets him run pretty quick (five times his speed in medium armor, at a hundred feet per round)- he won’t be able to outrun most people, but he won’t fall too far behind either. Tinker is much more complex, opening up an entire subsystem, but the bulk of why it’s there is to build and maintain his precious Ottoguard, with Mechanical Arsenal allowing him to outfit it with custom-crafted plate-mail for free, and Transportation Mastery allowing him to make an immersive cockpit that responds to his movements with a complicated array of levers and pulleys. Wrestling is there so that he can tackle a criminal and, if needed, beat them unconscious. It’s alright though, because even if it’s scaled up to be sized for an ogre, a lead rod wrapped in leather will still deal nonlethal damage.
Mechanoid Statistics:
4th level Mechanoid
N Large Construct
Init +2; Perception +5
Defense
AC 24; Touch ; Flat-Footed ; (+9 Full Plate, +1 Dex, -1 size, +5 NA)
27 HP (3d10+12)
Fort +5; Ref +3; Will +3
Defensive Abilities ; Immune Construct Traits
Offense
Speed 20ft.
Space 10ft; Reach 10ft
Melee MwK Large Sap +8 (1d8+5, Nonlethal)
Ranged MwK Large Light Crossbow +5 (2d6/19-2)
Special Attacks Snag (Swift action, render target battered as melee touch attack)
Statistics
Str 20, Dex 14, Con --, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 8
Base Atk +3; CMB +9; CMD 21
Feats --
Skills Perception +5, Sense Motive +5, Intimidate +5; Racial Modifiers
SQ 6 Upgrades (Arms, Legs, Cover*, Focused Design (+2 Str), Immersive Cockpit, Armor Slot, Alternate Size)
*Free upgrade
Gear MwK Large Sap, MwK Light Crossbow,
The Ottoguard, while piloted, can benefit from its pilot’s skills, feats, saving throw bonuses, base attack bonuses, et cetera, while keeping its own physical ability scores, armor class, and better weaponry, while also having its own pool of hit points. The pilot isn’t totally sequestered, however, and some parts of him are still visible, even if they’re behind hatches or a visor, and he may be attacked separately from the Ottoguard- though he benefits from Cover, gaining a +4 bonus to Armor Class.
An Ottoguard isn’t cheap, of course, but by the rules of Ultimate Engineering, Project Materials (for things such as mechanoids) may be acquired freely with time and successful crafting checks (DC 15 for 50 gold worth of material, +50 for each increase of 5, gathered over the course of 4 hours per check), meaning that by carefully sourcing and repurposing parts, the Ottoguard may be constructed from scratch by its pilot for free. This process of assembly and subsequent maintenance are drilled into pilots’ heads from day one. At a cost of 500gp for the average Ottoguard (100 per level, +200 for being large size), and about 100gp of Project Materials being acquired per day, this means an Ottoguard can be fully constructed in a week’s time (not counting the weekend of course). If in a proper settlement and in a real emergency, 500 gold pieces can be paid outright to acquire exactly what is needed almost immediately, after which construction of the Ottoguard takes 1 hour. All of this means that while Ottoguards are probably extremely similar on the outside (serving as somewhere between uniforms and police vehicles, they probably should), a pilot knows their machine inside and out, and there may be differences in the internal construction.
Ottoguard Adventure Hooks
1. A pilot’s Ottoguard has been stolen, likely to be reverse engineered by some enterprising criminals.
2. A pilot has been found guilty of illegally modifying his Ottoguard with blades, flame projectors, and stronger leg actuators. After causing several fires and deaths, he’s gone on the run with his new death machine.
3. A chaotic druid has caused trees and vines to grow over all of the city’s Ottoguards overnight, and has ruined the Ottoworks. With the city’s strongest defenders disabled, and Scalmoor’s stingy oligarchy unwilling to fund that many replacements immediately, the city is in shambles!
4. A mad tinker wizard has stolen the blueprints for the Ottoguards, creating one with an integrated Artificial Intelligence. It’s been going on its own patrols, blending in perfectly and disappearing before it can be apprehended. What is its purpose?
*New Martial Tradition
Mechaguard
Equipment Sphere:
Bounty Hunter’s Tools
Armor Training
Tinker Sphere: Transportation Package
Wrestling Sphere: (Constrictor Drawback)
Hammerlock
Inspirations:
FantasyNameGenerators is a wonderful site, and I used it to come up with the name Scalmoor
Appleseed (the 1988 OVA) is what really inspired this idea, bringing that movie's Landmates into a technologically advanced fantasy setting
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Necrozma, Light, and Divinity: A Very Weird Sun and Moon Theory.
I don't think the alchemical connections in Sun and Moon were ever really discussed in-depth enough for my satisfaction. There's no god damn way they'd just base the starter's first forms off the 3 primes and name one of the factions the Aether Foundation just not go anywhere else with that. Sun and Moon were pretty wild games, and I think maybe we got distracted with all the other bells and whistles, like Lusamine's bullshit, the UBs, and ya boy Guzma. Buckle up.
Before we get onto the main bit, I wanna talk a little about Mesopotamian deities. Observe this boundary stone from 12th century BC.
It's Wikimedia Commons details are as follows: Kudurru (stele) of King Melishipak I (1186–1172 BC): the king presents his daughter to the goddess Nannaya. The crescent moon represents the god Sin, the sun the Shamash and the star the goddess Ishtar. Kassite period, taken to Susa in the 12th century BC as war booty.
We've seen this 8-pointed star before, right on Necrozma's back
The star, as the description says, represents Inanna (called that by the Sumerians, and Ishtar by the Babylonians). She is a deity of love, war, fertility, and divine justice. She is associated with the planet Venus (we'll talk about Venus more in a bit). Inanna is referred to as the "Queen of Heaven", described as powerful but capricious.
She is also described as having some ambiguity to her gender, even having the power to alter people's gender, especially in relation to her cult. This ties into another figure Necrozma may be based on, as well as it's alchemical ties. But before I talk about that I wanna walk about the time Inanna died.
Gods die all the time in mythology. Inanna is one of the few who came back. For a time, she was trapped in the underworld by her sister Ereshkigal. Similarly, it's Sun dex entry reads "Reminiscent of the Ultra Beasts, this life-form, apparently asleep underground, is thought to have come from another world in ancient times." Whole it's entry in Sword for gen 8 is "It survives by absorbing light. After a long time spent slumbering underground, impurities accumulated within it, causing its body to darken.". Inanna is eventually saved when "sexless" or androgynous beings are sent to rescue her.
Bulbapedia's trivia section for Necrozma offers a different idea: Lucifer.
Ultra Necrozma, a being of light, four wings, draconic yet angelic, who's battle music begins with a fucking organ absolutely invokes imagery of Lucifer.
In this form, its head becomes the 8-pointed star.
Lucifer, who's name means "light bringer". Lucifer the morning star, associated with Venus. This figure is eventually absorbed into Christianity as a name for the devil, a being who himself was once an angel. It's not uncommon for media to depict him with a mixture of secondary sexual characteristics, though most are male. It's entirely possible this is because of confusion between Satan and the figure Baphomet, though I had a harder time finding info on this one. If that were the case I wouldn't entirely fault Gamefreak for it. Even I have a hard time separating the two. Also probably worth noticing that dragons come up several times in the Bible, usually in relation to Satan. Ultra Necrozma does gain the dragon type after all.
Two figures, sometimes of ambiguous gender, both associated with the 3rd brightest object in the sky? Interesting. Very interesting.
If you're still reading, congrats, we're talking about alchemy now.
It was pretty hard to understand where they were going with this until we got USUM. USUM introduced Team Rainbow Rocket, Giovanni's attempt to gather past evil the leaders into a league of supervillains (who you demolish). Seemed simple enough. Haha, Necrozma is a light god. Z-Crystals are shards of its light because it's a prism. Cool.
But maybe not the whole story. I introduce to you: The Prima Materia.
In alchemy, Prima Materia is a substance that acts as the base form of all matter. It is similar to aether. a book called the Theatrum Chemicum contains the following passage about it.
"They have compared the "prima materia" to everything, to male and female, to the [redacted]*, to heaven and earth, to body and spirit, chaos, microcosm, and the confused mass; it contains in itself all colors and potentially all metals; there is nothing more wonderful in the world, for it begets itself, conceives itself, and gives birth to itself.
*the word used here is considered a slur against intersex people, so I excluded it
Furthermore, the Lexicon Alchemaie (which i would have checked more in depth but I don't speak Latin), lists names alchemists have used for the Prima Materia. Ones that stand out to me are: heaven, the dragon, heart of the sun, spittle of the moon, Venus, the rainbow. The Prima Materia is required in the creation of the Philosopher's Stone.
In USUM, instead of Nihilego, Lusamine beings forth Necrozma. The Aether Foundation's name comes full circle here. Aether as an alchemical element is frequently associated with light and gravity.
What I'm saying is, Necrozma isn't just light. it's alchemical light. it is the Prima Materia. The energy it emits becomes other things (in this case, the Pokemon types).
Now let's take this a step further, with Type: Null and Silvally. They don't directly relate to Necrozma, but I do believe they have an alchemical inspiration that ties them to Necrozma's mythological position in comparison to Arceus.
According to Bulbapedia, Type: Null was created using cells from all known pokemon types. It was supposed to be able to change types with RKS system, inspired by tales of Arceus. There were complications with them going berserk and the project was deemed a failure.
Type: Null is a failed Philosopher's Stone, until the power of love completed it.
With high friendship, Type: Null evolves into Silvally. It breaks free of the limiter attached to its head and regains use of the RKS system, this time without going berserk. Gladion, a kid, achieves what a bunch of detached adult scientists could not.
It seems love and light are very similar concepts, at least in the Pokemon world. The fairy types are heavily associated with light, super effective against dark types, and a certain pokemon repping them when they first got revealed evolves when it loves you (and has a fairy type move).
Now, it's still difficult to say where Necrozma stands in Pokemon's mythology. It's from another world entirely. The question is whether or not Arceus has influence in those worlds. It's God. It should, right? I think there's a few possibilities, but I don't have enough information to decide for sure
-Necrozma is equivalent to Arceus in its own world. Ultra Beasts may not be described as pokemon, but they have types and use moves like them, so they must be something similar but adapted to a different environment. This one's a bit of a stretch.
-Necrozma is a creation of Arceus like everything else and plays an important function, it just made a home in a different area of time and space, or much like Giratina (another Satan inspired pokemon who is dragon type) it was sent there for some reason.
-Less likely, Necrozma is above Arceus, not as a god but a primal energy gained beast-like sentience, the divine Chaos from which Arceus came
One potential hint at this relation may lie in Arceus' name. It's likely this is a coincidence, and they didn't intend this from the get-go, but it did just happen to fit the alchemy theme. There is another concept: Archeus. Archeus is, according to Wiktionary: "The vital principle or force believed by the Paracelsians to be responsible for alchemical reactions within living bodies, and hence for the growth and continuation of life." It is another name for Anima Mundi, the soul of the world. The divine spark. Archeus has four aspects: Life, Light, Chemical, and Reflective.
I haven't worked out yet what this means, unfortunately. I could be connecting a bunch of weird mythological coincidences. But it was very fun. I would like to discuss some less grand alchemical connections in Alola sometime. Those would require a bit more research and milling over however. I genuinely wish I could give you a more satisfying conclusion here.
Altogether, I hope this gives you food for thought.
UPDATE: more thoughts
there's something I wanted to talk about that I forgot when previously writing this, and I've had more time to mull over previous thoughts.
This next section will start with the elements of gender ambiguity with Inanna and Lucifer, and how that connects to alchemy. Rebis.
An end product of the Magnum Opus (creation of the Philosopher's Stone), the Rebis is a fusion of spirit and matter, imbued with male and female qualities. (Lot of the use of that word I omitted earlier here so be advised if you look into it more). While lacking in the two heads, that certainly lines up with the element of gender ambiguity. Ultra Necrozma is the being at its strongest, when it is full of the much needed light its body had been starving for.
Another interesting bit regarding the Rebis is it is considered the result of "reconciliation of opposites", and imagery around it is called a chemical wedding. This is symbolized by the coming together of a king and queen, the king in red and the queen in white, each symbolizing the sun and moon respectively.
While Solgaleo and Lunala do not fit so neatly into the references to mesopotamian myth (Shamash and Sin are both male, Shamash is Ishtar's brother and Sin their father), this might add some ideas for how Solgaleo and Lunala connect to Necrozma. They are all beings of light after all, and Necrozma is able to siphon it from them when fusing with them in USUM.
I believe Necrozma may be a possible evolution of Cosmog. Bear with me, please.
Obviously, this isn't reflected in gameplay. What Cosmog evolves into depends on your version of the game. But Solgaleo and Lunala are framed as mates. You can get a second Cosmog in both games, and when you do, the other game's legendary appears. They are also referred as appearing to be male and female respectively in their Pokedex entries despite having no gender in the actual game data.
But what is Cosmog and Cosmoem in this case then? Well besides being based on nebulas, I think it may be another concept called filius philosophorum, "Philosopher's Child". One of the Filius' ways of being represented is by the Rebis, as well as a direct child of the red king and white queen. Many sites mention an egg as a symbol but don't elaborate further (like baby name websites they often feed off each other indefinitely).
Now Cosmog's name is the same in all languages, but Cosmoem's is not. It's Japanese name is Cosmovum. Cosmos and ovum. Ovum as in egg. The -em in Cosmoem's name may also be for embryo. whoever wrote the trivia section for it's Bulbapedia stage thinks it has elements of both the sun and moon in its design, and I'm inclined to agree. It also mentions something called the world egg.
The world egg is a mythological concept that spans across multiple cosmologies, but because alchemy often takes from the Greek cosmology I'll stick to that. Within Greek myth we are given the Orphic Egg, from which the primordial deity Phanes is born. Phanes' name meaning "to light, or to shine". He is described bearing a helmet and golden wings, largely referred to as male but sometimes as androgynous. His parentage varies, with having no parents at all, to Chronos (time), to Chaos, to Nyx (night). He is described as creating all other gods, or creating the day depending on the telling.
Necrozma is also Phanes, a being of light, born from a divine egg. Necrozma is a more perfect path of evolution than it's parents, but this is likely triggered by something far beyond the control of the player.
(Addendum: If you think this also sounds similar to books about Arceus in the Canalave library, you'd be right. That myth was applied to Arceus first, which makes some interesting implications.)
Now you may be thinking "wow a lot of these concepts sound like ways to talk about the Philosopher's Stone", and you'd probably be right. The Magnum Opus had many names and many ways of representing it visually, mostly alchemists wanted to keep their trade secrets. But there is an interesting one.
The ouroboros. A symbol of unity, eternity, and endless cycles. The beginning and the end are intrinsically connected.
What is Necrozma doing when you meet it in USUM? it's desperately looking for light. It can't make it on its own anymore. It's base form dex entries describe it as craving light, going dormant when it can't find it.
Ultra Sun: It looks somehow pained as it rages around in search of light, which serves as its energy. It's apparently from another world.
Ultra Moon: Light is the source of its energy. If it isn't devouring light, impurities build up in it and on it, and Necrozma darkens and stops moving.
Necrozma is burning out like an old star. Necros, death.
The Philosopher's Stone is often visualized in modern media as a gem, much like it's body in this form. When the power is expended, Necrozma will be just another rock. It is a transient being. Much like the Great Work, perfection is not sustainable in practice.
But it's not all bad. Phanes, again, is also described as creating other gods. In time, it's body will break down and may become a new Cosmog. The end begets the beginning. The Prima Materia is after all, important in the Great Work's culmination.
There is another being described as creating all else though, in Pokemon. Once again it rolls back around to Arceus.
In Platinum and HGSS Pokedex entries, Arceus' goes as follows: It is said to have emerged from an egg in a place where there was nothing, then shaped the world.
These beings are connected somehow, but after more research from my first version of this I've come to the conclusion that while Necrozma and Arceus are similar (remember, Arceus can be any type, Necrozma's light becomes the differently typed Z-Crystals), Necrozma is inherently more flawed and impermanent.
It's important also to remember that the Philosopher's Stone is the work of humans. It's not divine but comes from a desire to come close to it. I can't say the same about Solgaleo and Lunala, but it's possible that Necrozma isn't natural. Necrozma was made. By whom? Who knows, but probably someone from the Ultra Recon Squad's dimension. This is merely a guess. It could just be a natural but rare occurrence. From what we've been given, this anyone's guess. Maybe were not even meant to know. Whatever the case, Necrozma is a transient being, Arceus-like but ultimately imperfect. The cycle continues eternally.
BONUS ROUND: tria prima
In the very introduction of this post I mentioned the 3 primes, and the starters's first forms having similarities to their symbols. I'm aware there are likely many alchemical connections in the story that I haven't noticed yet but I wanted to discuss something more with that.
Paracelsus described the primes (sulphur, mercury, and salt) as materials from which all things are made. This is not entirely literal. Alchemy wasn't just chemistry, it was spiritual. Each prime has a different quality.
Sulphur is combustibility, soul, the divine spark
Mercury is volatility, spirit (mind), consciousness
Salt is neither, it is the body that holds them
One of the biggest examples for this is that in say, burning a piece of wood. The fire was sulphur, the smoke was mercury, and the ash was salt.
The tria prima sound a lot like prima materia don't they? It's kind of poetic the way this is implemented in USUM. You begin your journey with a prime material and it's biggest climax is with another prime material. Just as the end begets the beginning, the beginning begets the end.
~
Note for potential future update: Two substances were added to this later on: phlegm and caput mortuum (Latin for "dead head"). Caput Mortuum was waste product in a reaction. Phlegm, in the alchemical sense is "A watery distillation, especially one obtained from plant matter; an aqueous solution.", to quote Wiktionary. Phlegm was also considered a waste product. CM was produced by sublimation, and Phlegm by distillation. Phlegm doesn't appear to have a symbol but CM does: a skull.
#pokemon#gen 7#alola#necrozma#sun and moon#sumo#usum#arceus#type: null#silvally#alchemy#theory#i haven't stayed up all night writing like this since i wrote the calamity fungus theory post#mythology#cosmology
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REVIEWING MAINLINE POKEMON GAMES (Gen3 - Gen9)
I'm bored - let's review my favourite game franchise! I wrote this in a bit of a whirlwind, so please excuse any typos or odd wording! If I find anything I will fix it as time goes on.
I will not be including Legends Arcues or Let's Go! in this line-up.
WARNING: I rag on Gen4 (DPP and HGSS) a fair amount in this review. If you have a lot of love and nostalgia for Gen4, that's great! I'm not attacking you personally! Please don't spend your time writing angry paragraphs in the comments about why I'm wrong! You will not change my mind!
#1. BLACK / WHITE - Unova is probably my favourite region (which hurts to say; I'm a Hoenn girl, born and bred). It has so many of my favourite Pokemon in its 'dex (Chandelure, Krookodile, Volcarona, need I go on?); it has one of my favourite rivals (Bianca); it presents an interesting, open-ended moral dilemma within the Pokemon universe that doesn't really have a good answer; it has great music; it has a ton of memorable characters.
Also - unlimited TMs? Uhh... yes please! Gen5 introduced something that took some of the hoarding anxiety out of Pokemon and I will forever sing its praises for that.
Weird side note, but I loved the UI for BW; that weird monochrome high-tech display with the futuristic computer-like noises whenever you pressed a button or touched the screen really 'scratched my brain good', y'know?
#2. X / Y - If Unova is my favourite region, then Gen6 has to be my favourite generation from a mechanical perspective. I love both Pokemon Amie and the Super Training functions, both for their game-breaking, anime-esque battle mechanics and also because I was able to understand and actually access competitive battling for the first time due to the continuation of Gen5's unlimited TM system and the Super Training App's progress bar.
Mega Evolution will always be my favourite battle mechanic - the idea was so cool when it was first announced and I had a ton of fun with it while playing for the first time. It's so badass. And you know what? I really don't mind the change to the EXP Share. I got used to it very quickly and even when I had it turned out I still found the game to be a bit difficult in some places.
Also... don't hate me... but I kind of like Lysandre as a villain. I know, I know, many people don't, but I have a soft spot for antagonists whose whole mantra seems to be 'good intentions but they went too far'. Team Flare themselves are kind cringe though, I won't lie.
#3. EMERALD - I am so, so thankful Emerald was my first ever Pokemon game. I'm so thankful that I chose Mudkip as my starter; I couldn't have asked for a better partner as I fumbled through the game for the first time at the tender age of 9.
Emerald holds so many dear memories for me. It's soundtrack is, in my humble opinion, the best GameFreak has produced, from the beautiful, waltzing Surf theme to the encroaching terror of Victory Road. Steven was also my very first fictional crush and remains as such (sue me).
I will admit that where Emerald (and Hoenn in general) looses out is that, outside of Steven Stone (and possibly also Norman), none of the boss characters feel particularly memorable. Emerald also simply suffers from the lack of QOL improvements that later generations have. Strangely, I find it much faster to play than any of the Gen4 games.
#4. SWORD / SHIELD - This game used to rank much lower, but I've grown to appreciate it a lot more within the past few months.
I will be honest: I like it less for what it is as a product and more for how creative it's caused me to be when thinking about worldbuilding within the Pokemon universe. The Gym Challenge narrative switch-up was an interesting and refreshing shake-up for the series; the rivals and boss characters were memorable. The Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra DLCs are also great fun.
SWSH introduced the Box Link, which has been the best change the series has made alongside unlimited-use TMs and the Ride Pager in Gen7.
That being said, SWSH also half-removes the unlimited TM mechanic, which was frustrating. I'm also not a big fan of raid-style fights in any video game - I find them to be very stressful and needlessly hard. Gigantamaxing I also found to be a really weak battle mechanic. SWSH also has the weakest starter set for me. Inteleon is my favourite, of course, but it's the best of a bad lot.
#5. OMEGARUBY / ALPHASAPPHIRE - In my opinion this is the best remake that GameFreak has done (outside of two glaring issues). The characters have had a much-needed redesign; dialogue and story beats have been updated; the feel of the original game is still there alongside the QOL improvements from XY and Gen6 as a whole.
The aforementioned 'glaring issues' are as follows: the Battle Frontier is missing, and the fact that the games are based off of Ruby and Sapphire and not Emerald. And no, that isn't just the nostalgia talking; plenty of other people I've noticed have made similar comments about this game and also BDSP (which we'll get to later)
I wouldn't be so bothered by the Battle Frontier being gone (because the original RS didn't have it either) if GameFreak hadn't decided to put that little sign near the Battle Maison that said "Battle Frontier under construction". It felt like a nasty cop-out and it actually put me off of replaying the game for years, right up until I successfully Nuzlocked it.
#6. SCARLET / VIOLET - I have so many mixed feelings about this game that it pretty much ranks exactly in the middle of all of the games I've played. SV is plagued by its countless bugs and poorly executed open world, but its characters and story shine so brightly that it very nearly balances things out (the battle themes also slap). SV was also the first time where I felt like the main game was long enough and had enough resources to where I could truly experiment with my team; I rotated a selection of monsters out pretty much throughout the whole game, and I really appreciate SV for giving me that freedom.
Outside of the bugs, I also find the online raid battles to be stupidly difficult; I nearly drove myself to tears because of the Samurott raid that I'd worked so hard for and got nothing out of. I'm a very casual player for Pokemon, so it really bugged me that one of the few times I actually tried to do something a bit more competitively inclined of my own accord I was shot down repeatedly by an AI that was basically built to cheat.
This game also proved to me that GameFreak can't do a fully-open world properly, and I'm dreading the possibility of the next mainline game also being open world (and before you say anything - no, PLA is not open-world, it's open-pocket, and I wish that was the route that GameFreak went with because it worked so much better). I heard many people get irritated by SWSH heavily railroading you, but the game's environment was rich and beautiful despite its linearity. SV is big in a way that allows for GameFreak to boast about how big their dick game is and then not do anything with it: towns are separated by endless stretches of bland grass and rock; the towns themselves are lifeless props without any buildings to explore or interesting people to talk to; storefronts are reduced to a menu screen instead of having actual interiors.
Another irritation I have is that the game was marketed in a way that made it out to be that the player could do anything in any order they wanted, which ended up being untrue; Gyms and wild Pokemon don't level scale based on the number of Badges you have and one of the Titans (which, might I add, are just re-flavoured Totem Pokemon) is completely blocked off unless you've obtained the Herba Mystica that allows you to surf first.
Also that sandwich game looks atrocious. It's useful, sure, but... eugh.
#7. BLACK2 / WHITE2 - I've heard many people praise the ever-loving snot out of this game for being 'the best underrated Pokemon game ever made', but just like with HGSS... I'll have to disagree, if only from a personal basis. In my opinion, Black and White didn't need a sequel, and although this game isn't bad, it isn't exactly great.
I found B2W2 to be a regression of its predecessor. It turns a thought-provoking moral dilemma into the same-old 'I will wake this legendary Pokemon and unleash havoc upon the world and its idiots for wronging me'; Ghetsis is just a copy-paste of Cyrus to me. Too many times I found myself being railroaded by annoying extra content (Join Avenue, the Film Studio, etc.).
I also found the game to be a complete and total slog. BW is pretty grind-heavy, don't get me wrong, but it saves the majority of its heavy-handed level curves for the post game, where you don't have to feel as pressured by it.
GameFreak also completely got rid of Route 10, which had my favourite route track on it. That's just a personal gripe, though.
#8. PLATINUM - This was my first ever Nintendo DS game and also the first game I ever watched a walkthrough for on YouTube (shout-out to Marriland - you were a huge part of my childhood), so it holds some room in my heart, and it definitely ranks the highest out of all of the Gen4 games on this list. Unfortunately, like Emerald, it suffers from pre-Gen5 syndrome with a lack of QOL improvements (although it was a massive step up from the mess that was DP), and, like all Gen4 games, it's slow as hell.
I also ranked this game pretty low purely because of petty reasons. See, people talk about 'Gen Wunners' being annoying, but since I've never played Gen1-2 or have befriended people that have (I think I'm a little too young), I've never really had that problem. That being said, I think people who had Gen4 be their introduction to Pokemon are just as if not more annoying. I think it's got something to do with the fact that DP and Platinum had a lot of players that weren't Pokemon fans; I remember having friends in school that owned a copy of one of those three games and they'd never touched a Pokemon game before that and they wouldn't end up buying another game after. Platinum I think deserves the praise, but I'm not sure that the other Gen4 games do.
#9. SUN / MOON - Like SV, I have mixed feelings about the entirety of Gen7, but the negatives tend to outweigh the positives more often than not. The game isn't glitchy, but it's bogged down by numerous cutscenes and its inability to render a battle scene that contains more than one monster per side (something that Gen6 also struggles with). The Super Training app was also removed and the game suffers from having too many Alolan monsters be rare or inaccessible until very late in the game - something it shares with Johto.
The Z-move gimmick also feels like it was done it bad faith, especially after GameFreak started writing mega-evolution descriptions depicting the monsters in question to be in intense pain after XY and ORAS introduced the mechanic as something that could only be achieved by having a close bond between monster and trainer.
However, I do like the interesting take on the Gym system in this generation. The Totem monsters were genuinely challenging to fight, as well as other boss trainers.
#10. RUBY / SAPPHIRE - I don't have much to say about this once since it's just a worse Emerald, but there's still something I find about it to be oddly comforting.
#11. FIRERED / LEAFGREEN - I like Kanto's Pokedex quite a lot, but there's just something about it that I don't find particularly memorable and consider to be a bit of a chore (maybe because I've tried to Nuzlocke it too many times...?) I do appreciate it being a lot more interconnected than any other region listed, allowing more freedom concerning which Gyms to face next.
#12. ULTRASUN / ULTRAMOON - While the Ultra games fixed many issues concerning the accessibility of certain monsters and also introduced the Beach Point system, it also added even more cutscenes and, in my opinion, made the story worse; I loved having Lusamine be this batshit loony villainess, and yet that was recinded in favor of her having good intentions but getting too caught up in her goals to notice her declining behavior. Normally I like this sort of villain, but when we got the deliciously unhinged Lusamine as a first pass... I honestly liked that better. This feels like a cop-out.
This game, much like B2W2, is a total slog to get through. It feels immensly slow - it's the DP of the 3DS games.
#13. BRILLIANTDIAMOND / SHININGPEARL - This game leaves such a sour taste in my mouth. It really feels like GameFreak went: "Here's your Diamond and Pearl remake, are you fucking happy now?". It isn't like ORAS where the characters were revamped and QOL improvements from the rest of Gen8 were implemented; it's more like FRLG where the game is the same and all it received a fresh coat of paint, and even then I felt like FRLG was treated with more love and care than BDSP was.
There were improvements though, such as the ability to outright buy certain TMs from the Department Store and the wonderfully revamped Grand Unerground (I will admit I've had a lot of fun with the wild encounters there), but there's so much of this game that feels like getting spat in the face.
#14. HEARTGOLD / SOULSILVER - The game annoys the shit out of me because so many people seem to love it and I just... can't. Too much wasn't changed for ease of play - the level curve for wild Pokemon is far too low and the level curve from the E4 onwards is far too high. There aren't a lot of Johto Pokemon that are good, although there aren't many Johto Pokemon to begin with. The additions of some Gen4 evolutions helped a little, but some are blocked off until the post game (Honchkrow, Mismagius) and some are straight-up imposible (Magnezone) to acquire, which is very strange to me. Johto in general (and this matches up with BDSP's problem of being a remake but not adding in QOL improvements) is weirdly distributed, with Johto-introduced Pokemon such as Houndoom and Steelix only being available in the post-game, which I feel like defeats their purpose.
While by far the best-looking of the pixelated Pokemon games, it's as cumbersome as the rest of Gen4. And then there's that stupid Voltorb Flip game...
#15. DIAMOND / PEARL - There's not much I can say here, so I'll just sum it up by saying that Platinum is the only version of Sinnoh you really need to worry about. That being said, we wouldn't have Platinum without having DP, so... credit where credit is due?
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Pokemon Infinite Fusion: A Review
Hey, folks. As you may recall, I've played a couple pokemon fan games by now that use pokemon fusions as their central premise. So when I heard of a new fusion game that boasted a whopping 176,400 possible fusion combinations, I obviously had to try it out. I've written a little review of my experiences below. (Contains mild spoilers about game mechanics and features, but I do not spoil any major plot points)
Introduction
Previous fan games, such as Pokemon Fusion Generation and Fusion Generation 2, have been very enjoyable forays into the world of pokemon fusion, and the number of fusions available from those games already felt incredible. It provided for so much entertainment and experimentation. And yet, the world of pokemon fusions has been expanded even further. Pokemon Infinite Fusion, while not quite infinite, is named very appropriately, since the number of possible combinations may as well be infinite. The game takes place in Kanto/Johto and contains all the original pokemon from those reigons, as well as an expanded Dex roster that also offers selections from gens 3 - 7. This means the total number of base pokemon ends up at 420. And the wild part? Is that you have complete freedom to fuse any two pokemon from this list. If you do the math, that means there are 176,400 possible total fusions. You may be wondering how on earth someone made a game where this is even possible.
The biggest catch here is that not every single fusion has hand-crafted sprites. Instead, it often draws from a sprite pool that has been generated by the popular Pokemon Fusion Generator website. You might remember back in the day when this website first rose to popularity and sort of kicked off the original pokefusion trend among fans. The site works by mashing the sprites together in a way that roughly makes sense. Here is an example:
As such, the sprites often look a bit awkward, but they give a general idea of a fusion. Many pokemon fusions rely on this database of sprites, since as you may imagine, hand-crafting 176,400 combinations is no small feat.
HOWEVER. There still are over 50,000 hand-crafted sprites in the game for fusions. The number is simply staggering, and this was accomplished because many, many different sprite artists contributed to the project. What's more, new hand-made sprites are still being made all the time by the community, and you can even make your own and easily add them into the game yourself. For example, if you wanted to make your own Caterpie/Gyarados combo to replace the auto-generated one above, you can! This game is truly a labor of love on a massive scale, and it's inspiring to see.
In my opinion, the system that Infinite Fusion has works well. When it comes to in-game trainers, they almost always have only pokemon with custom-made sprites, so it doesn't feel too jarring to play. Meanwhile, the auto-generated sprites allow for the total flexibility and freedom of combining literally any two pokes. Also, while some auto-generated sprites are extremely awkward, many of them are actually quite passable and some could even be confused as custom sprites. So don't let the fact that not every single sprite is custom-made put you off, because I promise this game is still such a joy.
The Fusions
The main draw of this game, of course, are the fusions. So let's address them for a bit. How exactly do they work in this game? The basic premise of the game is very simple, but effective: the Silph Co has invented a new product called DNA Splicers. These can be bought at any Pokemart. They are a single-use item that will allow you to fuse any two base pokemon together. (Lorewise, the DNA Splicers are based off the item in Pokemon Black/White 2 that is used to fuse Kyurem with Reshiram or Zekrom) And that's it! When you select the two pokemon, you have a choice of 2 different fusions. Just as with the original Pokemon Fusion website, you can combine a pokemon by choosing one species for the 'head' and colors and one species for the 'body.' This influences how the fusion looks, of course, and also impacts exactly how the stats are combined in the resulting pokemon, too. Later on there's also a nice product in the Marts that is a 'DNA Inverser' that lets you immediately create the inverse fusion, as well. It's quick and easy, no muss, no fuss. You also can unfuse pokemon at any time.
In this game, you will encounter trainers with pokemon fusions all the time, as well. Because the DNA Splicers are a hot new fad, pretty much everyone in Kanto wants to try them out. This means that fighting trainers in this game is guaranteed to be endlessly entertaining, because you are seeing new fusions literally all the time, throughout the entire game. The Gym Leaders and E4 (and your rival) boast some of the most exciting combinations, as they should. Also, you will see fused pokemon in the wild, too, in addition to the normal base species. This means that even just exploring or grinding is continually entertaining.
The fusions function in game pretty much as you would expect. Their movesets are a combination of the two base pokemon. Their stats are a combination of the two individuals. When you first fuse them, you get to choose which of the Abilities you'd like to have for the resulting fusion. The Types are generally combined so that the first typing of the Head pokemon is mixed with the second typing of the Body pokemon. As for evolutions, those exist independently. So, for example, if you have a Charmander/Caterpie fusion, it will evolve into a Charmander/Metapod fusion at level 7, and then a Charmander/Butterfree fusion at level 10, and a Charmeleon/Butterfree at level 16, etc.
A pretty reasonable question you might have is "how the heck does the game even handle this many fusions"? I'm gonna be honest, I have no idea how they fit this many pokemon slots into the game (including a Pokedex that has all of them!!) Obviously it would be impossible with a ROM hack, but of course this is a fan game and thus does not operate under the same constraints. (That said, the number of pokemon it handles is still incredibly impressive) I do know the game total filesize is understandably quite large if you choose to download the 'standard' version of the game, because it has a butt-ton of sprites. Fortunately, you can opt for the 'light' version of the game if you'd rather not download all those sprites at once, and the game can connect and download sprites as needed. This is the version I use and it works great.
As for the fusions themselves, I love the vast majority of the sprites. They run the gamit from pretty straightforward fusions to intensely creative and clever designs. Some look very cursed in a good way, and above all, they're sure to be entertaining, if nothing more.
I will make one brief note of warning: there are many artists contributing to this game, so naturally the sprites will vary. Occasionally there is a sprite I find that I would personally consider to be . . . not matching the tone of Pokemon (Parasect/Ursaring for example has bloody stumps for its forearms, with dripping blood, which to me just feels a little too gory and out of place for Pokemon) or something that's bordering on inappropriate. The slightly 'inappropriate' ones are sprite fusions made for particular pokemon species that are known to be sexualized by fans (namely, Lopunny and Gardevoir). I have not encountered anything overtly inappropriate, mind you-- but some are clearly sexualized, and that understandably can make some people uncomfortable, myself included. Fortunately that's quite easy to avoid, as you merely need to avoid fusing pokemon of those particular species.
Other Features
So, the devs of this fan game are very frank about the fact this game does not focus much on plot. It is, in their words, essentially "Pokemon Red, but with fusions." That said, there is a basic plot to this game that is slightly altered from the usual Red plot. Team Rocket is up to no good, but their schemes now are strongly linked to the exciting new fusion technology. I won't spoil the storyline, but I do want to say the climax of the story is very satisfying and especially rewarding to hardcore pokemon fans.
Additionally, Infinite Fusion offers a lot of delightful QoL upgrades and bonus content. It boasts a ton of sidequests, mostly streamlined by offering a Hotel in towns where the sidequest NPCs are gathered (and a way of easily tracking your quests and rewards). The game also allows you to rematch trainers as much as you'd like, and trainers' pokemon grow stronger and will even evolve when you rematch them enough times. This is very convenient if you'd like to do some grinding. There are a lot of modern pokemon moves added to the game, Fairy typing, and plenty of other modern upgrades. The game also offers an integrated Randomizer mode, a speed-up button, a WonderTrade simulator to give you all kinds of random fusions, battle facilities and other goodies to maximize its replayability and its streamer/YouTuber-friendlyness.
Some of my favorite features include Pokeradar for finding rare pokemon and Hidden abilities, which includes a very handy display of all possible pokemon encounters in a given area once you've discovered them all. Another useful addition are in-game items that replace the need for HM moves, but are integrated in a very reasonable way. Basically, you start off needing to use HM moves, but eventually can earn special items that replace the need for HM moves. Usually you end up earning these items around the time you'd like to replace the HM move with a more useful moveset, so it works out very well.
I think my most favorite thing, though, are just all the NPCs with changed dialogue and fun jokes and nods that the game contains. You can tell a lot of love went into the game by fans who truly do love Pokemon. Some of these references include nods to Pokegod rumors, details from manga or anime, other pokemon games and other video games, and so forth.
There are a lot of little details, including an updated Safari Zone and even a Team Rocket black market, where you can purchase pokemon and unique items! As such, I want to emphasize that there's plenty to explore and see, despite the plot being largely the same. And with a full Kanto game + Johto & Sevii islands postgame, there is plenty of content.
My Run
Pokemon is a game largely defined by choice. While "catch them all" may be the catchphrase they introduced in the US, that has never truly captured the spirit of pokemon. Pokemon is more about the ones you choose. Pokemon Infinite Fusion expands that power of choice to the nth degree, so much so that you can very easily suffer from decision paralysis. In a game that gives you 176,400 pokemon to choose from, how can you possibly decide?
I handled this question by narrowing things down a little. I often do all-bug challenge runs of pokemon games, so I decided my run would be limited to bug types only. But even with that narrowing things down, the number of options were still quite dizzying. I definitely did a lot more team shuffling and changing than I normally do. I know I spent hours just fusing things to see what they'd look like. (There's a very handy website to speed this process up, allowing you to preview fusions.) It was overwhelming at times. But ultimately, I did settle on a final team.
Surprisingly, this team often didn't consist of my absolute top picks of fusions. For example, the Yanmega/Kabutops I have looks awesome, but I think I like the sprite of Butterfree/Kabutops a little bit more. However, my choices were constrained by things other than mere aesthetics. I did want a team with decent synergy and coverage, too. I think that's an interesting thing to think about. In life, you may not even need to be the Very Best to still be an excellent pokemon-- or to be chosen.
Sasspora - Parasect/Ninjask - Bug/Flying - Infiltrator - Silver Powder
Moveset: Screech/Aerial Ace/X-Scissor/Spore
Notes: Sass unfortunately suffers from never learning a really good Flying STAB in his learnset. Aerial Ace was the best I could do for him. Still, Spore abuse and his fantastic speed take him very far.
Zippy Zap - Beedrill/Jolteon - Bug/Electric - Volt Absorb - Amulet Coin
Moveset: Quick Attack/Dig/Thunderbolt/Thunder
Notes: This fusion emphasizes Beedrill's weaker stats when compared to the inverse fusion. Despite that fact, Zip Zap continued to be invaluable on my team all the way through to the very end, hitting above his weight. He offered vital Electric coverage and was a check to fellow Electric types.
Pomegranite - Butterfree/Rapidash - Bug/Fire - Compound Eyes - TwistedSpoon
Moveset: Tailwind/Flare Blitz/Fire Blast/Psychic
Notes: Compound Eyes + Fire Blast is pretty cool lol
Peekaboo - Yanmega/Kabutops - Bug/Water - Swift Swim - Rocky Helmet
Moveset: Night Slash/Air Slash/Surf/Aqua Jet
Notes: I knew I had to fuse the Horseshoe Crab/trilobite-inspired Kabutops with a bug type; he was just too cool to pass up. Night Slash was very useful coverage on Ghosts, which may not come up often but when it did, it saved us big time.
Purple Rain - Ledian/Flygon - Bug/Dragon - Levitate - Soft Sand
Moveset: Fly/Bug Buzz/Rock Slide/Earthquake
Notes: When I was playing around with fusions, and I un-fused my Ledyba, it suddenly turned into a shiny. My guess is the game re-rolls things when you un-fuse pokemon so each time you un-fuse a pokemon, there's the chance they become shiny. It was pretty cool, but the best part was the shiny in this game was purple. A million times better than the actual shiny. So I had to use it.
Flygon was the perfect chance for that. We all know Flygon should have been Bug/Dragon, as it's based on an Antlion, both the larva and adult. Finally, Flygon could fulfill its true destiny. EQ and Rock Slide may not have been STAB but they both were essential to the team. The wide range of resistances was very nice, too.
Leonardo - Articuno/Armaldo - Ice/Bug - Battle Armor - Leftovers
Moveset: Brine/Freeze-Dry/Rock Blast/X-Scissor
Notes: My final 6th slot was kind of an uncertain one for a while, until I decided Bug/Fairy would be fun. For a long time I went with a Armaldo/Clefable fusion. I found it underwhelming and decided to change; an Ice type could still act as my designated dragon-killer. There wasn't any sprite done for Articuno/Armaldo at the time I was playing, so I did my best to make my own and added it into the game.
Conclusion
Play this game! Seriously, it is so good and you'll have so much fun. The replayability is practically infinite, and if you're especially passionate about pokemon fusions, you can submit your own sprite edits to be included in the sprite packs that everyone can download! The game has appeal for everyone, from super casual players, to streamers, to challenge runners and everyone in between.
Happy fusing!
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My Experience DMing for a class of kids!
This will be a bit of a long post, talking about my recent volunteer job as a DM for a D&D club, so I'll pop it under a read more break! For those interested in how this anxious artist managed to pull off running a D&D campaign for a class of kids for 2 months, read on!
So - let's start at the beginning. I was asked if I wanted to take over as DM for a D&D club that ran for 6 weeks over the final term of school. The current guy they had was leaving, and apparently the kids really wanted to keep playing. I, being absolutely thrilled that a school was taking an interest in D&D, gladly accepted, and begun my planning for what would be a challenging yet very fulfilling little project!
I had a chat with a couple of the students who were part of the club, and asked how their last campaign went. They said it was very slow, and they had to share characters, so I came up with the idea of splitting the class into 3 groups, and letting 2 student volunteers take the role of DM for two of these smaller groups. For this, I designed a small 5-room dungeon, and wrote a step-by-step guide on how to run it - similar to how a premade campaign book would, but in even simpler terms. I also simplified the game; a lot. I only got an hour a week with the kids, so I had to make it easy to digest and quick to learn.
I ditched the Wisdom and Charisma stats, ditched all of the ability/skills as well as saving throws - on the sheets I designed for them, I left Strength, Dex, Con, Intelligence, AC and Initiative, and I created 4 premade class sheets with the stats already rolled and filled in. They could be a Wizard, a Rogue, a Paladin or a Ranger. There was also a little box for them where they could draw their own character's portrait in, as I know kids love to be creative. The class sheets had 2 actions/attacks they could make (based on their class), or they could use a turn to drink a potion (for which I gave unlimited uses). For the dungeon I also created premade enemy sheets, with my two types of enemies being Mimics and Goblins. These would be part of the 'DM pack' that would help the volunteer DMs run the game. The map had a version that the players would see and move their tokens around on, and one was a DM map that had all the objects and enemies and traps labelled, that had corresponding letters to the DM guide I wrote.
This.. went about as disastrous as you could imagine. My own little group went amazingly; as I'm an experienced player, I was able to oversee and guide the players through the traps and puzzles I'd made, and we had a blast. I did spend the first half hour of the lesson trying to explain how to DM to my volunteers, but, as young'uns go, they were incredibly distracted and found it hard to pay attention. In the end, I just handed them the material and hoped for the best. They seemed to have fun, but they *Definitely* weren't playing by the rules, or even using the material.
So, I went home, and I scrapped nearly everything. I kept their player sheets as I thought the simplified sheets were working well, but I ditched a lot of rules, and decided to merge the group back into one big party, and oversee DMing myself, with a brand new dungeon, and without a map.
I started them off at the door of a giant, creepy gothic castle, and hinted that an evil vampire lord lived there. The kids loved being told about what monsters they might face, and we had a lot of banter (things got very noisy a lot of the time, so I did have to urge them all to quieten down and listen a lot. A bottle of water is recommended as I had to raise my voice above the chatter to get their attention quite often). I prepared several riddles, and found out I had underestimated my class as they immediately knew the answer to all of them, absolutely blasting through the front door. Here, I had prepared two monsters for them to face; a gargoyle and a giant bat. Now here, combat went slow. I had 12 kids that each needed to decide on what they were going to do and roll several dice that they were still struggling to tell the difference between, and by the end of the turn order, the kids were getting distracted and antsy again. I initially had stats, attacks and all the other components to an enemy block written down, but I soon realised it would be far better to just improvise the numbers on the spot, and let them defeat them when I thought they'd had enough rather than use actual numbers. If a kid asked me about the numbers, I'd just tap my nose and say that was for me to know, which kept them from discovering the secret that I was completely winging everything! If I noticed energy levels dropping and kids getting distracted, I'd let the next student who landed a hit get the killing strike and move on.
What I learned from this was that the kids loved rolling dice, and loved being asked and prompted about puzzles, but found it really hard to pay attention during my dramatic descriptions of the rooms they were in, and they'd often not bother looking around or investigating rooms for puzzle components - by session 3 or 4 I realised I should just ask one of them to roll an investigation check as soon as they entered a new room (just using their intelligence mod) and if they rolled higher than a 10 I'd point out whatever it was they needed to interact with. If they failed, I'd ask someone else to roll until we got a hit, and then I'd praise how the successful party member had helped them so they'd all cheer for them. The kids definitely needed a lot of prompting during exploration, so I would ask questions like 'So who wants to....' and then I'd be greeted with a flurry of hands stuck in the air, desperate to take part, rather than what I would otherwise have had - a distracted group of children who didn't really know what they were meant to be doing. Once they were sent on the right track however, enthusiasm soared, and I'd be swarmed by excited adventurers eager to suggest what they wanted to do.
I found asking them to recap what happened in the last session to be a good way to start each session, as it refreshed their memory and got them back into the mindset I wanted - eager to solve my next puzzles and finish off the one we left off. It also gave me a chance to let the more quieter kids say something by picking their hands if they ever raised. The whole time, I would be constantly asked 'when will we reach the evil vampire lord?!', which I would respond to with a foreboding chuckle and an ambiguous answer.
I played a fair few tricks on the party too; setting off false traps and sending my adventurers into a panic as they yelled what they wanted to do before the closing walls squished them, only for the countdown to end and the walls to stop just short of crushing them - I think the kids really loved the playfulness and sense of urgency created in these scenarios. Most of my puzzles were simple but required group participation - I borrowed a fair few puzzles from DM resources online, picking the ones I thought would be easy enough to solve but still make them think. They also had to be fairly quick puzzles as the kids would lose interest fast and grow bored if they couldn't solve it quick enough. My dungeon over the 6 weeks honestly felt like a rapid speedrun of many different puzzles, each teasing that the next would lead to the BBEG. They also wanted plenty of short combat encounters too; everyone wanted to be the one who got the last hit on the enemy and crowned the zombie-slayer or skeleton-slayer of the group. By this point, I'd scrapped even preparing monsters in my notes, and threw enemies at them whenever I felt we needed a pace change.
I increased the complexity of the puzzles near the end, with the final puzzle being quite a bit longer than the other ones; I wanted them to experience at least one full length puzzle that made the final room feel all the more earned. Thankfully, by this point they were used to my antics, and managed to solve my final puzzle. In the last room, I decided to give them the biggest enemy of all; a multi-headed vampiric dragon (my own on-the-spot invention, as I had hinted at a vampire this whole time only to throw a big dragon at them haha). I got them all excited to fight him, and let this combat feel like a real challenge compared to the others, so it really felt like a final fight. Near the end, some of the kids had gotten distracted again and started drifting off, but I completely lost track of time, realised we had 5 minutes left, and let the next hit be the one that slayed the dragon. As the reward, I had brought a big bag of candy with me as a surprise, and told them that amongst the treasure they found the dragons secret sweet-tooth stash; of course the kids went wild as I dished out handfuls of candy to my successful dragon-slayers.
So, that was the conclusion to my 6-week campaign, with a party of 12 children. The age groups were super mixed, and I definitely noticed the younger ones needed a lot more prompting and guidance, but all in all I think they all enjoyed it. I definitely had a few students who were actively interested in D&D, as they were always stuck right in and eager to join in and solve everything; but I also had a few kids that realised D&D probably wasn't for them, and wouldn't really participate unless prompted to - however, I really appreciated that they tried it a little bit and joined in when asked. In the last session, one of the kids ran up to me when I arrived and told me how much he loved the classes; I almost got teary-eyed! I also had a couple others tell me that they loved playing so much that they were now organising and planning to DM their own campaigns - I honestly couldn't be prouder to have inspired some of them to play again.
The experience was definitely stressful, definitely a challenge, and definitely gave me anxiety sometimes, but it was absolutely worth it. Through trial and error (and, lots of errors at that), I found a flow to work with, and knowing that I managed to guide a whole class of children who had never played D&D before through an entire dungeon, and to have them even tell me how much they enjoyed it, brought me so much joy and pride. I now feel super confident that I can DM my own real campaign for my small group of adult friends, as that will surely be a piece of cake compared to what I just achieved. I'm not sure if I'll do it again (though the school has said they would love to have me back to run it again next term), as it was very draining, but it was definitely an experience worth having. I'm going to miss my little adventurers!
I hope reading this was interesting, as it was definitely a new and challenging experience for me, and I thought it was worth keeping a record of - if nothing else but to remind myself that I'm a capable DM when it comes down to the wire!
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A bit more Defeated, and thinking about this post (Patreon)
#Doodles#SCII#Helix#Max Vyer#Dexter Favin#But actually starting with chibi Maxes because cutes!! He's the cutest!!#I was looking through some old doodles of my own and my chibi style from 2019 was so flippin' cute ugh#That Zedaph in cold weather clothing? Honestly still a fave of mine Zed is So soft in all my doodles of him lol#Figured it'd be nice to float some cute loves Max's way :) And I was right! Though I am out of practice lol#Was still fun to do tho haha#And then since I'd reread Defeated poor ZEX got a chibi as well! I'm sure he appreciates it poor lad haha ouq#Didn't even use my white ink to put a shine in his eye for that one haha :'D#And then a bit more with Dex </3 I had these ideas on the first reading (or so - in the same time period anyhow) but only got to them later#Dex speaks so.....patronizingly about ''Max's'' attachment to Caleb :) It's interesting to me :)#For a lot of it he's very understanding and gentle with him but it really seems like Caleb is something of a sore spot for him huh#Still ♪ I wonder if he'd consciously acknowledge it - and what his reaction would be at himself if he did hmm#He's no help to Max if he's caught in his own feelings! That doesn't make them not meaningful or important tho#And then to a bit of silliness ♪ No subtlety with the guard dog comparisons pffft#I will not apologize - if ZEX gets to play with a collar and leash with the Captain then let Max have just a little! As a treat!#Besides we all know the Real Dynamics here lol#Max and Dex do stupid couple's costumes for Halloween - who doesn't love a callback lol - and Dex is Not Amused lol#Hey I mean if the shoe fits!#And then the last one is just silly lol I may be misinterpreting the intended message but I couldn't not give it to them lol#And also Max in a ponytail for funsies :D Cute lad ♥
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Right! 1 more thing I would love to mue about regarding pokemon. Frankly it is wild to see how discussion around pokemon has changed over the years, even if it’s just from who I’ve followed. When sumo were coming out it was like all excitement. I followed a guy who posted lots of funny tweets and was all happy about the new pokemon. Look at Cutiefly. Look at Lillie. Hey her outfit seems reminiscent of that new jellyfish? There was like a dex entry about how it disguised itself as a young girl? Is this a hint about the story and possible connection between Lillie and the various ultra beasts? (well, not really. Lillie is there and she does have something with Lusamine but the ultra beasts are just there. I don’t know why Nihelego had that line about changing its shape.
So USUM came out and literally I saw people making scolding comments about how we shouldn’t expect that much about the games because they were basically just sequels to the first two and you had to understand you were getting basically the same game. They did have a bunch of extra little additions. But at least for the people I was following, there was still immense dedication and loyalty to gamefreak. To be fair, this was the second time we’d seen a sequel pair of games in pokemon. But the first time was Black 2 and White 2. Compared to BW, they’re entirely different experiences in Unova. A new part of the region, like 3 new gyms, a different plot that follows directly after the ending of team plasma, and again lots of other small changes and improvements. Since I like gen 5 a fair bit, I do think that both versions have their own merit. But I prefer BW2 more. Cause oh yeah, they brought in like 300 returning pokemon that you can catch across the region, in addition to most of the unova dex.
So BW2 were, I think, fantastic sequels, and it’s a little understandable people were caught off guard by this pair of games.
I don’t remember at all what people were saying about let’s go.
After that, was of course swsh, and a slew of discussion, debate, arguing. various other stages of some people realizing where pokemon was at and what it meant for the people making them. Personally I’m sorry to have ever bought into the idea of “lazy game devs”. And now it’s gen 9. I was actually a little hopeful for what they might be, but it seems from the outset that hope was misplaced. And it’s just a little sickening to think about how this is it. I wonder what pokemon game they’ll push out in 23 and 24. Can’t go a single year without a pokemon game. Within the time frame of gen 8, there was also the red/blue rescue team remake, a literal new pokemon snap, both of which look incredible (made by other teams). Legends arceus looked alright. But there was also BDsP, so.
I kind of wonder what other games could be enabled this generation. But it’s with the knowledge that any potentially enjoyable or good facets or productions from pokemon are at the expense of the game freak staff churning out these main series games. And also that no matter how good any of these spinoff games might be, that I am exhausted at the thought of more pokemon games every single year. It’s just upsetting thinking about the last time you could have a year without any new pokemon to look forward to.
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damn they killed me from ur inbox...
dexter 0,6,8
Frfr top ten tumblr moments ever. Anyways HAHAHAH YES A CHANCE TO TALK ABT MY GUY (also sorry I took so long I had to go to a volunteer event)
0. - The first thing I think of when I see the character
Honestly? @/dexter-erotoph's art is a quick popup for me. I found his account when I first got into Spooky Month and it definitley helped enhance my initial levels of Dexter mania into the frothing torrent it is today. Seeing the Dexter Paws[TM] post in an urgent care clinic is still a core memory lol (Odie if you see this you rock dude :3). Otherwise I think abt how cute he is (lol), how tragic he is, and Warrior Cats in descending order. Something something murder cat connection idk man I connect everything to Warriors in my brain lol. OH and ratcandy bc im still obsessed with it
6. - A theory about them I think is unlikely
Hmmmmmmmmm this one takes a little thinkin, mainly bc people don't usually make alot of theories related to Dex lol. I guess I'd have to say the Dexter Velseb theory, I love the theory / concept so much and worm it into my ideas often, but in terms of "things that are actually likely to be canon" I feel like the Dexter Velseb theory is pretty low down. Won't stop me though
8. - A sad / evil HC for them
:DDDDDDDDDDDDDDD YIPPPEEE I have. A lot lmao. A few of them like off the top of my head
- Before Unwanted Guest happened he was a dude who actually liked kids alot, but after everything he can't stand them
- This is a little niche, I like to think he got his scratch from his first ever kill, a neighborhood cat. It jacked up his eye bc he was messing with it, and later on the cat came to "apologize" to the boy but Dexter's needs had begun to become more intense around that time and it was messing with him enough that when he saw a small warm body to overpower he just kinda went for it without thinking much. He buried the cat somewhere in the woods and everyone just thought it was missing, meaning a bunch of missing pet posters that kinda haunted lil Dexter for a while. And then Dexter would end up on the missing posters himself, with people thinking he was still findable.
- My man did not have a good home life!!! Especially because I like to toy with the whole Dexter Velseb theory, I don't think Bob would be the most nurturing or even-tempered parent. I also like to think its one of the reasons Dexter's needs are such a big issue for him, Bob saw a little boy with psychological issues and instead of taking him to see someone he totally fed into and encouraged them
- Dexter is still sort of tethered to his body, he can't re-enter it because Moloch refuses to let him in but because of his death and the state of his body Dexter can't really pass on and keeps coming back to it. Imagine staring down at your own mangled body flopped on a morgue table watching a lady try to pull the teeth out of your head because she's made a sort of pet project out of your brutal death. And your own eyes are staring back at you with loathing.
- Speaking of body, Moloch taking his body hurt. REAL bad. I mean, he had extended hardened claws, teeth piercing through his mask, horns.... that definitely wasn't an easy transformation. I don't think Dexter got kicked from the body right away and could feel Moloch stealing his body and beginning to destroy it. I can't remember who made it but I remember seeing art of Dexter post-mortem where because the mask stayed on during his body reshaping it messed up his face real bad, imagine feeling your bones and muscles reformat but your head is basically stuck in a bit ziploc bag. Dexter got kicked out of the body pretty fast but the sensation sticks with him, and watching the transformation finish from the sidelines probably wasn't a good feeling
- This is a little more AU-ish but if Dexter got his body back I think it would be almost worse, I can't imagine being forced to live again post-mortem for the 3rd time would be pleasant mentally, and also his body is now ruined enough that it's impossible for him to return to his old life. Not just in an appearance way but probably internally too, a body somewhere between life and death is probably a bit rusty on the insides. So he's kinda stuck, bc he can't really get a new body and his old body isn't worth it anymore, but he can't let go of it
I like to bully Dexter alot as a form of endearment lol, but I'll cut a little bit of the bitter with something sweet - I like to think the cat in his missing photo is his pet cat, her name is Sasha and she helps that loser man calm down :3 I also like to think he collects taxidermy and tries to make it himself, some of it is a little botched tho lol
Anyways, thank you for asking!!! (And indulging me w/ talking abt Dexter lmao)
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While the love at first smile thing is very cute, to me the moment Laventon fell out his crush and fully in love with Cyllene was when she took in her abra.
Like she comes up to him like “I found this baby Pokemon, it looks okay but the mother is gone and I couldn’t just leave it but I don’t know how to take care of it, can you help?” And Laventon wholeheartedly agrees to.
Cue cute bonding over co-parenting her pet Abra. (Also Cyllene had feelings for Laventon at this point too, she just didn’t know how to express them at the time).
Honestly, Cyllene having an abra of all pokemon is such a WILD bit of character building when you break it down because if you've played any game where abra can be caught you know it's OBSCENELY hard to get your hands on one(at least in early game). They always use teleport IMMEDIATELY, and it's like the ONLY move they have, and you don't usually have anything to stop them from running at the point in the game where you first encounter them. I mean ask a lot of nuzlocke players getting an abra is GREAT but also almost impossible. Like some of the games just HAND you an abra because it's just too hard.
And catching enough abra to finish their dex entry in PLA was ridiculous like there are SO many strong pokemon in the areas where abra show up who want to, can, and absolutely will kick your ass the second they see you, not to mention the abra teleport around randomly by default and on purpose if they notice you. You have to sneak through several dangerous ass areas and then up on the abra with like a bunch of jet balls and aim like a boss while praying. So like?? Cyllene my love HOW did you get an abra????
I love the idea of her finding it when it's young and raising it though, especially with the image of just, how matter of fact she is? Like her finding it like "People only help those who help themselves. If you aren't strong enough to survive on your own you will die." *takes it home* and then raising it like "I am not a kind or affectionate person or mother. Life is hard, you will have to be harder. If you aren't you will live a short life and likely die. I love you." *gives it chin scritches and head pats* just total dissonance like that. But ofc the abra doesn't mind because it's basically a cat psychic so it knows how much Cyllene cares even if she doesn't show it the same way other people would.
And...my heart...Laventon maybe already sorta liking Cyllene, maybe saw her smile once or do something cute and was like "oh I like her wow", but then seeing her awkward yet earnest attempts at saving his little abra and all the small, slightly strange and completely genuine expressions of love and affection...and he's like *softly* "Oh..." just full fanfic trope he's GONE just loves her and just loves her more with every day, not in spite of how "weird" she is but because of it....my heart....T_T <3 <3
they co-parent the heck out of that abra tho and Cyllene absolutely complains about Laventon spoiling it but does nothing to stop it.
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SS Arc Binge
And so it begins.
Well, aside from having no idea what Pokemon is what, or... what is happening in general with the Gym/League and why... I don’t particularly have much to say about the arc so far. Although... it seems like the arc was very blatant in the intent of shoving the female character to the side during a fight or anything.
With a very early excuse too. Shield won’t be capturing anything or fighting much with any effectiveness, since she already has a team that’s now MIA. Why indeed. ... That said, this might be the first time I’m actually okay with that, because I don’t really like her... for now. We’ll see. I’m making this post as I’m reading the arcs, so... things are subject to change.
The Dynamax thing... well, I’m getting an inkling as to how it works now. And all that comes to mind immediately is... what if you Dynamax an Electrode or something... and then have it use Explosion? Heh. That might be a glorious last stand option. “Sir, this is a Golem that’s about to get Dynamax’d. When it uses Explosion, the resulting blast and shrapnel will shred everyone in this half of the city, including you, me, and that guy way over there by the route that sells tickets to the sports dome. ... Damn him to hell!”
Hehe. Destiny 2.0: let’s Dynamax Primal Groudon and see what happens! Some people just want to see the world burn.
... And her fight gets skipped because of course it did. Ain’t no time for that!
Oh look, it’s the Toxapex that Moon never got because she got shoved off to the side too. ... Or did it evolve at one point, and my mind just blocked out most of SM/USM?
... Skipped again. This time with an instant replay at least. What do you mean, her fight happened during the commercial?! Then show some replay scenes or something! Get that mess sorted out, then pack your bags because you’re FIRED! ... Well, better than Moon, I guess, who... fought once (and lost) in the entirety of the arc... At least Shield here fights... off screen. And wins! On the plus side, it’s looking good for her power rankings if she was to be used in my stuff. On the down side, I have no idea if her team is sh*t or not because I don’t know any of them (not Galar Stunfisk), so... overhaul is not a possibility. So... does her team compare to Moon’s Spirit of Vengeance, or Y’s Winged Aggression? ... Probably not?
... Skip the third one too. 0/3 1v1 fights were on screen. Joy. But at least she did something beforehand, and... got that barracuda thingy back. Okay. So if Shield gets her stuff back one by one, and if she ever has a full fight on screen, I can see how she fights, and use that!
Huh, isn’t that the... er... is that orangutan thingy from Generation VI, or VII? I remember it has a move that allows a partner’s attack to go twice or something? I remember that part because the guy who Destiny’s Mega Hunter is based on was considering it for his all-in build, and we had a bit of a discussion about it. “Dude, are you seriously planning on a double-tap Eruption all-in? That blast already one-shots a Kingdra, and it goes off on turn 1 if you wanted to. What more do you want?!” ... He actually wanted a triple-tap build... A base power 150 move (75% in triple/multi battles), that’s boosted by STAB, Sunlight, Helping Hand, Flash Fire, and Choice Specs, that hits three times in one turn? The power of a supernova at your fingertips! Thankfully, I don’t think he succeeded in coming up with a viable build before he too, like me, suffered the ALPS, or the Abrupt Loss of Passion Syndrome.
Heh. A Dex Holder WITH mind control, instead of being subjected to it all the time! Where were you in Destiny, you piece of shi-
... Well, f*ck her, I guess. ... Aaaaand skipped the actual fight too. 0/4. Keep the streak alive!
Hehe. This guy’s pretty endearing.
Shield: “Your mask is really cool!”
Allister: ‘Oh, a compliment! I have to respond appropriately and not mess it up!’ “Th - Thank you.... I grew it myself...” ‘DAMN IT!’
... You’d send out a Togekiss and have it use Double Edge? And against a Fighting type? ... Did Togekiss get like +100 to Atk, and gain Aerialate while I was “dead”? It’s like Y getting Xerneas to use Geomancy then Horn Leech. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! Study how the damn game works! Shadow Tag working on Ghost types (XY)?!
And she fights onscreen for once (well, most of that was off screen still), and loses! ... That’s one way to get rid of her entirely so that you don’t have to skip her fights all the time. “Oh, she’s up for a fight. Uh... have her win. Next! ... Fights again? Fine, win that too. Next! ... Again? She won’t go away! Fine. Win. ... Another one? Have her win that too. ... Again?! No. She loses. Now get her out of here.” ... Still though. Despite that bullsh*t, she still won 4/5 1v1 fights. Much better record than Crystal or Moon, who have 0/1. So if I overhauled Shield’s team, she would definitely rank higher than Moon. But unfortunately...
... They really say the words “sword” and “shield” a LOOOOT. ... Makes sense, I guess. And good that the main characters aren’t referred to by the game names this time around. Man, would that have been hell. ... Although, that’s just the English translation for the nicknames... I guess if I use Sword and Shield, I’ll use a hybrid of some kind, similar to Dex Holder nickname usage. ... And I’m not bolding all of Shield’s lines. ... Because then, I’d have to bold Black’s lines whenever he raises his voice. Y: “Will you two shut the f*ck up?!”
Huh. His fight got skipped too. ... Strapped for time, are we? Time to speedrun this challenge! It’s like in a variety show when a segment gets edited out because it wasn’t entertaining enough.
Huh. So this is the guy that I mistook for pliers. Essence of Pliers: Teeth. Get some dental work done in on an enemy with a pair of pliers. They won’t need to brush anymore.
... The only one that I can think of is XY, with the whole media for Flare and the doomsday cannon with whopping 0 kills. ... Man, I don’t remember most of the games... Probably partly due to the fact that I never paid attention to the plot. Same sh*t, different generation. Stop the comically evil guys, blast the “rival” over and over, and continue on towards world domination! ... Right?
... This lady reminds me of another certain racing maniac...
The man, the myth, the legend... Fujisawa-san... er... Pocket Circuit Fighter! Been a racing maniac for over 30 years! And damn, time has time not been kind to-
... Ahem. Anyways...
... Interesting. Unfortunately this little experience isn’t exactly useful, since it’s like a decade after a certain girl’s character development... Although...
Shield: “I’m not a fan of hanging out with stuck-up arrogant nobles.”
Platinum: “...”
Moon: “... What. The. F*ck did you just say?!”
Welcome to the era of social media. And why exactly I can’t stand up against the stupid selfish shitbag customers who throw tantrums because they couldn’t get their way. And only for them to leave 1/5 stars on Google and spread bullshit on Facebook or whatever it’s called nowadays anyways. Well, I’ll fight back anyways, because fuck them and their fucking money. And if they have a problem with it, they can write a complaint letter and shove it up their ass because I don’t give a fu-
... No frustration... no frustration... You’re twice my age and still acting like a damn child in public?! I want to meet your mother, and tell her that she should be embarrassed for raising you to act like a damn baby full of shit to-
... Ahem... Anyways...
... Now that, is a gigantic pile of trash. Garbage ball... heading towards the planet... the smell... gaaaaagggggggg... ... ... gaggagagggggggg... Huh, there are all three modes of transportation stuck on that thing, for land, sea, or air travels! ... I thought this was supposed to be England, not Japan. But there are a lot of gigantic godzilla-esque monsters all over the place!
... And... that’s it! ... I don’t have a damn clue as to what that thing is. ... I probably wouldn’t even recognize Necrozma nowadays either, so... hehe.
Well then. ... So far, I’m actually enjoying it, though I probably won’t be continuing with it since I already got what I came for. Not knowing exactly what’s going to happen is a HUGE plus. ... That said, not knowing what is happening is... not good. Pokemon designs are... f*cking ridiculous, but that’s not the arc’s fault. ... Sword’s Gym fights have gone... well, predictably, and often times it feels like the Leaders’ Pokemon were made of glass or something, being downed in one hit. So... definitely seems rushed, but that might also be the games’ fault. If the games don’t throw in a bunch of events happening in between Gyms, then... well, it’s mostly same sh*t, different city, and you’d have to come up with creative fights. So... skip! So I understand not wanting to repeat the whole fight thing with Shield’s challenge, but... they really should’ve alternated it. Show Sword’s challenge, skip Shield’s. Then in the next place, show Shield’s fight, and skip Sword’s. Instead of skipping Shield’s fight 4 times in a row, and then having her lose the 5th after skipping most of it.
Now, the most important thing... Sword and Shield themselves! Mostly, personalities and bonds and what have you.
For Sword... He really is Ruby (job/battle) + Diamond (every day). And that... isn’t really unique. Then again, given how many of these Dex Holders exist, some are bound to repeat. And he has a little bit of White whenever he’s dealing with battle maniacs. Like that time in BW when Black and the janitor of all people were hyping up for a battle, and White is just like “... seriously??”
And I can’t help but think, every time he talks about gears or repairing... “I can fix anything! As long as this thing holds together. ... Hear me, baby... hold together...!” Ahem. And I guess him carrying around repair tools explains the damn aircraft luggage case he has on his back. In the rear with the gear!
For Shield... The overly loud trait is getting annoying, though it is amusing a lot of times, so... that balances it out. I love the nickname scheme of measurement unit prefixes. Fits with her obsession with data and analysis, which is very useful. And given how many prefixes there are, even if I was to overhaul her team, I can still give nicknames that don’t repeat, even though I may have to resort to going the opposite direction on the exponential scale. And above all else, I love the fact that she can actually fight well. ... Even if that’s only off screen.
If I were to have overhauled her team, I probably would give her mechanical units... er... Pokemon. Like Magneton, Porygon2, Metagross (if I hadn’t already given that to Emerald), etc. And the team theme would be data related, instead of... whatever the f*ck the team theme is right now. Sword has the gear theme. I guess Shield gets the short end of the stick again? Well, maybe one day, I’ll check out what her Pokemon’s stats are, and then decide if they’re garbage that need to be replaced by machines.
... Now then. I have some stuff to think about. Hmm...
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I feel like it also heavily depends on what chara you running for elden ring. Like I'm going full int noodle arms and I basically tri shot most bossed, sometimes they just bug and give up and state at me un movingly while I spam the only 1 usable sorcery in the game.
Some bosses yea are just continuous spam of attack and u just go guess I'll die. Or fucking crucible knights type enemies that just keep their shit shield up forever then stab you real quick before putting the shield back up and I'm here like 8D
Btw yea the death debuff doesn't curse you just... Insta kills you like ds3.
anon this is gonna be a LONG response cause you just gave me a valid reason to ramble for 50 paragraphs so i will
i currently work with a str/fai build and will probably make at least 1 more character with a dex/int build. i had no idea full int builds were so stronk but im thinking of trying one out at some point.
Srs analysis below:
Honestly I'm just a little sad with the state of enemy encounters in the game. Limgrave, weeping peninsula & liurnia largely have the same enemy encounters in the open world with very little variation, and a Lot of the mobs I've encountered up till now rely on being in a group or homing attacks.
Find a soldier in the wild? He blows his horn and gets his buddies. Find a dog or rat? It barks to alert everyone around, which I'm honestly less likely to care about because while theyve been around since demons souls.
Those misbegotten cunts see you and blow their horn and every single one of them comes running.
That room in Godricks castle with that one exile soldier who blows his horn and then all the sleepy dudes stand up.
The courtyard where theyre all heaped up
Even the fucking bears in those woods
Walk around in liurnia only for some weird bent over dude to appear and spawn 10 more and they all use homing missiles as well
The cartwheeling frogs
Those dudes in the academy courtyard where its like oh theres one blue guy just kidding theres 15 now
And now I've entered Caelid and theres these amazingly cool looking big dog enemies and all they do is fucking bark and alert the rest again oh and also theres soldiers again I guess. And the frustrating thing is that, aside from the runebears, pretty much all of the above enemies are complete pushovers on their own.
I don't feel like I'm fighting enemies with interesting attack patterns or who pose a serious threat, I feel like I'm in that one room in pokemon gold/silver/crystal where every line you cross spawns 3 incredibly weak rocket trainers.
I get that this is necessary when you include spirit summons in the game but I'd rather they just balanced it a little bit? The mechanics arent bad on their own it's just that I really don't like how many of the fights seem to rely on it. It's like almost every fight relies on everything but making the enemies interesting to fight in order to make them hard.
Rather than making the casters have more health & more interesting moves, just sticking 5 of them in a small hallway so you get to avoid 5 missiles at once should make them hard. Boss fight being 2 enemies that die way too quickly? Add dragon rot to the floor! The dog and bird enemies twice your size die in 4 hits? Just make them alert the rest! Stick a big knight with the same moveset as all the other ones in a small corridor to make him hard!
Maybe it's because they made the more interesting enemies all field bosses but to me it just feels like their actual non-field boss enemy pool is super boring because of that. The erdtree avatar doesn't need to be a field boss. The bell bearing hunter doesn't need to be either, though he does need to be tuned down. Grafted Scion? Seriously? Why are some of the pumpkin heads bosses? The mariner guys, too.
Siofria was the first New new area i encountered I feel and its like. theres a million rock men and you're like "oh shit I wonder what these do" and the answer is jack shit. Theyre only hard because theres 20 of them on one staircase. Then you go out and those snipers 2 shot you from a million miles away with their homing arrows that are literally impossible to dodge.
I'm only at caelid but it feels like there's no difficulty progression in the enemies. Everything is either a pushover or two taps you, there is no inbetween.
I'm sure the other big non-optional bosses are gonna be good. Godrick was amazing but following it up with rennala after all I listed above just left a sour taste in my mouth cause her boss fight is just...unfun imo
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