why are you on a twitter byf?

hi, youre actually not the first person to tell me this tonight! i Also have no idea why im on a blacklist. i want to clear some stuff up because i was told this three (3) times. i dont exactly like that i have to reply to this publicly because i dont even make personal posts but i think this whole thing is out of hand and has been for a while.

im putting this under a Read More because its long and im finally able to air out some of my feelings about the situation.

TLDR: devin has lurked and kept tabs on me for three years and its exhausting that i have to address it like this of all places. if you need proof or anything feel free to dm me.

this is soooo. okay so i met this person in 2019 from the best of my memory because ive been trying for about an hour to get onto my old blog but i cant remember the login at all, and she and i had done a few dms just about whatever. and then she wanted to make these two kin doubles who hated each other or something be friends again, please note we all shared the same kin, and stirred up some problems.

then, after this happened, her host (or she did? regardless she admitted that she was involved in the creation) had made a callout blog for one of them despite my attempt to steer this off from happening, and i was ignored. i think my last message to her directly, and im not kidding here, was in jan 2020 (three full years ago!).

after this i made the choice, for myself, to soft her on tumblr. i no longer wanted anything to do with the situation, i think kin drama is stupid and im sure it was more personal than kin things from what she had told me, but i had no intention of being involved further. or know any of these people. like at all. after i softed her, she made a post about taking a hiatus after she deleted the callout blog and thats it from what i know about her tumblr because it was deleted soon after iirc.

8 months later she tried to follow my twitter, and i recognized her. i considered it a lottt, but i really didnt want that kind of energy stirring up things again in my life because 2020 was an absolute fucking Disaster of a year enough. so i softed her from my twitter because of this for my own mental health.i havent had a direct message with her since early 2020.

i know nothing about her, her life, anything because i wanted as much distance from that whole situation as possible. i didnt get to know her well enough with her to call her my friend or anything, and everything that happened so soon after we did start talking really made me not feel like i wanted to be friends or get to know her better if this was her vibe. she has made posts about missing me, when i feel as though i never warranted the title of friend at all because she basically just vented to me a couple times before this started and i didnt and still dont have the energy to deal with that kind of person.

i have found out, however, she has fucking LURKED me likely for three years. shes posted about how ensemble stars reminds her of an ex friend (which, she didnt get to know me enough to be my friend, and its pretty obvious this post is about me because my special interest is ensemble stars) and i got into it in mid 2020 so she shouldnt possibly know i ever got into it without lurking me. its some creepy shit ill be honest with you.

she knew and made posts about how my psychotic ass had delusions about being w/ilbur ds-p from nov 2021- mid 2022 because i like. Was in a horrible state and related to how self destructive he was or whatever but i got better and got my life together and dont do that at all anymore. i dropped it and i have most terms blacklisted (and the series itself) because it reminds me of those racist assholes and also of a horrible time in my life im still recovering from.

i have no fucking clue how this could affect her or she would even know. seeing as this was wayyyyy beyond the time i knew her. however this proves she was lurking me to myself and people who know me personally… we're all insanely confused. shes had no reason to keep up with anything about me for three years and im pretty much sick of it haha. ive been quietly freaking out over how scary shes been acting about me and whatever idealized version of what or who i was she had assumed during the very short time i knew her because i didnt want to start anything.

thank you for reading this. i hope this stops soon because i dont want to keep dealing with something thats happened 3 years ago and it happened because i didnt even want to be involved in things. its just unfair and makes me feel insanely uncomfortable im still a hot topic for her even though she hasnt messaged me or anything since following my twitter and being softed. it makes me feel weird and its just weird to me.

I hope you dont mind my asking, but wouldn't GF have decided to remove the national dex long before LGPE released? I can see those games selling well confirming to GF that "pokemon sell well regardless of cut features" but it feels strange to blame it on LGPE when the development time on the games would suggest they made this choice awhile ago. (Not to defend lgpe lack of content) Sorry if this is a bother, I just feel like I'm missing something and would really like to understand your reasoning

For almost any other game I would agree, however for Pokémon in particular:

The National Dex (insofar as the ability to transfer old pokémon over) was never going to be a Day One feature. It’s never a Day One feature in the first games of the generation. Even if they wanted to make it one, in this case they couldn’t because Home isn’t releasing until 2020. As I’ve said in other posts, if they wanted to patch in the NatDex, they’d have the time to do it. Technically speaking, they’d have the time to do it, especially since the fanbase would be willing to wait (even if there’d be a few whiners here or there) the extra time.

Since it’s not a Day One feature, it’s something that can be worked on later in the development cycle (/can even continue to be worked on after the development cycle, or at least it could be if this series were treated with the respect of, say, The Legend of Zelda series). Again, I’m not talking about DLC that’s already on the game card that needs to be activated later, I’m talking about DLC that’s patched in, content created after that you download either to the harddrive or (though I don’t know if Switch DLC works this way specifically) onto the game card itself. Given the type of content they generally want to show early in the release cycle (the general theme / concept of the games, scenes of the various areas in the region, new ‘mon), and the fact that this would be a feature added post-release anyway, we can make a safe bet that the NatDex is something they’d work on much later in the development cycle, possibly even in the last year since, again . . . they’d have that time if they wanted to use it (and if this series was treated with genuine respect).

The Let’s Go games were stated by Masuda to be the future of the franchise if they sold well. They featured a Pokédex that was limited to only the Kanto ‘Dex, plus Meltan and Melmetal. They released in November 2018, and indeed, they sold well. In early 2019 (February, IIRC) Sword & Shield were released. While of course I don’t work at Game Freak and thus can’t say for sure, I would place money on the idea that if they were even a bit on the fence about adding the National Dex, the fact that Let’s Go sold so well despite being limited to 153 ‘mon pushed them right over the edge to, “Cut the National Dex from Sword & Shield, there’s no point in working on it.” I mean, why should they expend the effort if people will buy the games anyway? Especially when President Ishihara went on record saying that long-time fans only cared about “new pokémon and features” around the time of Let’s Go’s release. Sure, they might have already been thinking about cutting the National Dex beforehand, but Let’s Go no doubt assured them that it was a safe and correct call to make.

So that’s what I mean when I say that Let’s Go’s positive sales figures sealed all of our fates. To be entirely honest, before the National Dex announcement, I was certain that we wouldn’t see the shockwaves from Let’s Go until Gen IX. But Sword & Shield having a limited ‘Dex just like Let’s Go, and having special feature ‘mon behind $60 paywalls like Let’s Go, and having core features stripped out like Let’s Go, and the fact that it’s starting to look frighteningly like the starters won’t be able to evolve like in Let’s Go . . . the effect is pretty apparent. Sure, some of this stuff was present even before Let’s Go (namely the whole “let’s ditch useful features in the name of simplifying things” tack that Masuda has been married to for years now), but in the wake of Let’s Go, it’s success, and what Masuda said would happen if it was successful, it’s really hard not to see the link.

(Note just in case anyone read too quickly: I’m not saying the starters WON’T evolve. I’m only saying that I’m starting to fear that’s the case since we’re less than a month away from release and we haven’t even seen second stage evolutions yet. Maybe they’re just trying to keep starter evolutions a surprise, that’s entirely possible, but it’s also highly suspect, and Game Freak destroyed any trust or good faith I had in them a while back.) 

As a final note, the reason why I say that the Pokémon games aren’t treated with respect is . . . well, there are a few reasons:

Game Freak stated themselves that they put their B Team on Sword & Shield while their A Team worked on Little Town Hero. They also said they wanted to create something, “as exciting, or perhaps even more exciting” than Pokémon. They’re tired of working on Pokémon, and it shows. Which, I mean, I get it, it’s been 20+ years, but in that case tell Nintendo so that they can shift the main games over to another studio. I get that Game Freak was created for the sole purpose of making Pokémon, and maybe Taijiri-san is pissed at how you’re disrespecting his baby (I would be), but for the good of the series, if you don’t want to work on it, give it to someone who does. Don’t just shift it onto your bare bones secondary dev team.

These games are in a hellish development cycle where a new one is popped out every year. Contrast this to The Legend of Zelda where, while we’ve had some anomalies where assets were able to be largely reused and so games came out only a couple years apart (see: Ocarina of Time to Majora’s Mask) --- even that had two or three years before releases, not one the very next year. Most mainline Zelda games spend five or six years in development. I’m fully aware that we will likely be waiting until something like 2022 for Breath of the Wild 2, and I am prepared to wait that time because I know the game we get will be incredible. Granted, I’m going to be dying every single time they announce a release date to push it back, but it’ll be a death I’m grateful for because I will know that the end product will be worth it. The Pokémon games used to have a similar luxury. While there were a grand total of five games released during that time (with “five games” being used loosely, given that one was a slight upgrade and the other four were really two games with slight differences between versions), Gen IV lasted for a grand total of four years. We had Diamond & Pearl in 2006, Platinum in 2008, HeartGold & SoulSilver in 2009, and then finally, Black & White in 2010. By contrast, Gen VII didn’t even last three years, technically. I mean, this November would be its third anniversary, but that’s when Gen VIII officially starts instead. To be fair, it could be argued that Gen IV didn’t have a full four years since it came out in September 2006, and Gen V came out in September 2010. But even if you make that argument, it still had a full year on Gen VII, and to be honest, that showed. The Sinnoh games are far and away not my faves, but they were still full of content. HeartGold & SoulSilver are often considered to be the best remakes in the entire franchise, and considering the content that was cut from OmegaRuby & AlphaSapphire and Masuda’s reasoning for why that content was cut, I can’t exactly argue with that even though I did genuinely enjoy ORAS. And the games that Gen IV ushered in? Controversial opinion, but I think that the Pokémon games peaked with Gen V. Black & White not only initially had a ‘dex that was nothing but new pokémon (and yet STILL included the Nat Dex later, because in Masuda’s own words he felt it cruel to keep people from playing with their faves forever!), but it also introduced a METRIC TON of new mechanics, some of which we no longer get to use (Rotation Battles? Game Freak doesn’t know her). Who knows what exactly Game Freak did with that extra year, but it was clearly a lot of work given how wonderful the games were in Gen IV and Gen V. The extra dev time showed.By contrast, Gen VII got 2.5 years (or 3 if you’re being generous). Every single game released during this gen had massive content cuts, even when comparing to Gen VI, which also had massive content cuts. Mechanics were stripped away, and Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon technically didn’t have a NatDex either, but at least you could still have all of your ‘mon in them at a later date if you wanted to. Now with Sword & Shield, we don’t even have that, despite the Switch being far more powerful than the 3DS. (We also don’t have Mega Evolution for whatever godforsaken reason, even though the Kanto Mega Evolutions at the very least were already used in Let’s Go, the fuck, Game Freak). Pokémon games print money and always have, and Game Freak has taken this and their lack of interest in the series to the depressing but I suppose logical extreme of “do whatever and they’ll buy it anyway.” There’s no love here, there’s no respect here. They just don’t care anymore, and as someone who does care an awful lot, it’s super upsetting to me.

And while people have tried to argue that the games can’t be delayed because of the anime or the card game or whatever else:

The games come first. They’ve always come first. I know some people mistakenly think that the anime came first and that the games were created later, but that is 100% false. Pokémon started as a game series and the anime was created to advertise the games, straight up.

Filler episodes exist, and the PokéAni is no stranger to them. The Orange Islands arc was an entire arc of filler created to pad time between Gens I and II. The Delacora Islands (or whatever they were called) was a filler arc meant to pad time between Gens V and VI. Arguably the majority of the Sun & Moon anime was filler, given its slice-of-life genre, meaning the anime was even less of an excuse not to delay Sword & Shield. You can’t tell me people wouldn’t have been happy with another year of the Alola crew running around getting into random adventures. People would have eaten that up and loved it. We could have had it all.

I’m not even going to dignify “but the card game” with a response lmao. This isn’t Yu-Gi-Oh!. Sure, the card game makes money, and probably a decent amount of it (merch sales probably make up the franchise’s greatest source of income, and as someone who easily spent several hundred dollars in two weeks at the PokéCenters in Japan---including over $100 in one trip to a PokéCenter while I was there, and we went multiple times---I am a big part of that), but they come up with bullshit new expansions all the time and could easily keep doing it. Again, not a reason to delay the games if the games need more time in development.

So all in all, at the end of the day, Game Freak is no longer treating these games with love and respect, which makes them an awful lot like the villains in the games they create. The Let’s Go games were harbingers of disaster for the games, and we were told this very plainly, and just about no one listened. In fact, I legitimately lost friendships with people who got mad at me for making Facebook statuses about how they should buy Let’s Go used if they absolutely had to have them because how DARE I believe Ishihara when he said that Let’s Go were considered core titles, and how DARE I believe Masuda when he said that Let’s Go would usher in the last twenty years of the franchise. Clearly, I was just being an ugly bitch. (I wish I was exaggerating, but this actually happened, I got blocked over it, it was ridiculous.) And now here we are as a result, with no hope of things getting better unless Nintendo forcibly rips Pokémon out of Game Freak’s hands, which I don’t even think they can legally do given that they only own 1/3rd of the IP. (The other 2/3rds belong to Game Freak and Creatures Inc., as I understand it.) 

TL;DR:

Pokémon is still my favorite fictional fantasy world, but as someone who has always loved the games first and foremost, the current state of it depresses me to no end.

heres my full thoughts on the nintendo direct since ive only posted reactions mostly

splatoon 3 having salmon run is kind of confusing due to the story (the story mode definitely seems ANTI salmon run and grizz). not sure how that works but ok. it’s my favorite mode from splatoon 2 so i have no complaints in terms of gameplay. wish they showed more of the game though. definitely getting a splatoon 3 direct later. also i called the release window. may was splatoon 1, june was octo expansion, july was splatoon 2... maybe august is splatoon 3?

never played wii sports (i dont even think i tried the demo they automatically downloaded onto everyones wii u’s) so i dont really have an opinion about switch sports. im relieved whenever i see new games i dont care about at this point

ive wanted mario kart 8 deluxe dlc for years but that was mainly along the lines of bringing in new characters (such as octoling or pauline) than courses. theyd better add waluigi pinball though, ive wanted that since 2014

i love xenoblade, but the games are so huge and take so long to digest that lately i’d kind of been thinking that after i eventually finish xcx and eventually EVENTUALLY play and finish xc2 (and probably its dlc) then i might just leave it at that and pass on whatever comes later. but... xc3 looks really good. like really really good. looking forward to playing it hopefully within the next decade

in august 2011 i visited my cousins and they introduced me to portal (and minecraft and atla incidentally). i played it for a bit but struggled with one of the early puzzles, even when they told me what i had to do. im better at video games now so maybe i could try it again once it hits switch? idk

kirby’s mouthful mode just makes me concerned for his health tbh. why are things getting stuck in his mouth? i need to play the game so i can take him to see a doctor

im glad theyve finally added the only nes game i care about and one of the few snes games i care about to the switch. got too many games i havent played before to play instead though. and as ive said i dont think i care if they localize mother 3 anymore, for one thing they should change “ma***sies” to something that doesnt include a slur and i dont think most people would even realize it needs to be changed currently so i dont see nintendo doing anything about it unless that changes

as ive said, metroid dread easy mode wouldve been nice before id cheated my way through. also i dont even know if it wouldve helped since it specifies boss damage and not overall damage. and that doesnt even cover the issues dealing with emmi (being able to cheat to autocounter made those sections much less stressful)

fire emblem warriors is another game im relieved to not have to care about! something weird i’ve noticed about warriors games is i’ll play them and they’ll be fun and then suddenly i dont want to play them at all. happened with hyrule warriors on wii u and then again on age of calamity. i wouldnt really call it getting burned out, feels different. happened in the postgame both times, so maybe the postgame gameplay just isnt as rewarding to me? idk. anyway i cant even begin to care about three hopes as i’m still working through my first route of three houses after 2 years. hate the calendar. you give me control over the passage of time and expect me to move it forward at a reasonable rate? this was your mistake. i’ll spend 2 hours figuring out how to best use the month i’m on and when i get to the next month and have to do it all over again i quit for a few more real life months. the battles are fun though

live a live sounds like it might be good but good luck getting me to play anything else new in 2022. maybe eventually though

weird how they released a version of kingdom hearts specifically “for cloud.” does he even have a switch? i havent played final fantasy vii