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Bulbagarden Staff AMA Thread

Favourite colo(u)r?

Magenta.

Favorite drink?

Right now my favorite is Fruit Punch flavored sparkling water.

How was (or is!?!?) school for you?
What was/is your favorite subject?

Ready for my life story? :p

School was a mixed bag for me. I had a lot of great teachers, but I also had some that I struggled to learn from. Particularly in math classes. Math was a nightmare for me always and I'm so glad I'm done with it forever.

Overall, pre-college I made mediocre grades. Even in history and music. I did not know how to study back then, so I struggled with tests. I did, however, love history classes even if I was like making C's. D: The highlight of my high school experience was marching band. I was fortunate to end up in a school with a nationally competitive marching band. My senior year, in particular, was spectacular. Couldn't have asked for a better way to go out. lol.

Socially, I struggled even more than I did with keeping great grades. I was bullied relentlessly in elementary school and middle school (and some in high school) for me being visibly (beyond even my own knowledge pre-high school) queer. In high school, the bullying was less of a thing, but this was perhaps the harshest time for me, as I made numbers of "friends" only for them to turn on me. I was left feeling bitter, like I couldn't trust anyone and that I was just "annoying" by nature and that no one would stick with me for long.

College has been a very complicated, long-term experience for me. This is in great part because of health issues and other personal issues striking me hard in my freshman semester.

I had really good grades in my freshman semester. I decided to major in music, despite me being mediocre at it. I had even been told by my music theory teacher at high school that I shouldn't pursue music. I did not understand Music Theory in high school. It would not click. But in college, it clicked pretty quick for me as did a lot of other things.

But the health issues came into the scene and in my second semester and the first semester of my sophomore year, I did not do well. You have to understand that my mental state was shattered and I began to see everything I did as "pointless" because I did not see a future, but at the same time I wanted to remain in college because it made me feel like everything was still okay.

(seeing as it's now some 14 years later, you may think me a hypochondriac, but that's not the truth. It's...complicated, and saying much more wouldn't make sense without be explaining what the health issues are, which I've already typed so much and need to move on)

It took me several years to get my Associate's Degree. I then tried to move on to university in Music Education (band director), but it was not meant to be. I attempted to work and commute to the university and it did not go well. I dropped out after the first year. I loved the university, I loved the professors. No one was to blame except for myself and my mediocrity (alongside my health). I did get to play in the university's symphony orchestra and it was really special!

Finally, a few years later, I somehow got pulled back into music (seriously, if I told this story, it would seem like something out of fiction) and I returned to university. This time with a more concrete, better fitting goal for me - Musicology (Music History). From this you can extrapolate my favorite subject, too. I adore music history. I joined this forum just one semester after dropping out of the first university, but my username (which is still my username) I learned from taking my music history textbook and reading it for fun (I was only in Music History II at that university, which was Baroque and onwards, while the aulos, being from ancient Greece clearly was from Music History I). It was when I read the music history book outside of the class's bounds (while the rest of the music students hated music history) that I began to realize that music history is my thing and actually always had been. (I seriously read and loved a book on the history of woodwind instruments in high school lol)

So I returned, got my bachelor's degree. But life has stepped in and made it hard for me to continue on at this point. That's another long story. Basically I need to be proficient at two western European languages to get into music history in grad school. Personal issues and the pandemic have made that difficult.

Post my sophomore year my grades went up, as I learned how to study and write essays. Even at the university I dropped from, I had really good grades the two semesters I was there. And at my university I graduated from, I made straight A's one semester, full-time. It was hard fought for and felt very good.

I got rewards and graduated cum laude. I know that's not super amazing, but my GPA there was 3.8 (it's lower total for all colleges). Pretty good, for me!

Socially, I don't know that I have to say. I grew up a lot in college thinks to the struggles I faced and even came out for the first time and had my first girlfriend. But that didn't last long, and most of my college years were spent miserably in the closet and miserably lonely. It was hard for me to connect with many students when I returned to university in 2016, because I was in my upper 20s and a lot of the students there were near a decade younger than me. I did join the LGBT club there, for what it matters, since I lived on my own and didn't have to tell my parents about it. But... it was for support, not love.

Lol... No one needs to know this much. What is wrong with me? D:

Favorite subject, as I said - music history. I also love regular history. I have taken a number of European history courses and enjoyed them all thoroughly. I'd love to say an ensemble class as well, but due to my mediocrity, most of my time in ensembles has been anxiety inducing. The orchestra I mentioned earlier was really neat though, and I fell in love with a number of pieces that we played there. I would give anything to play them on oboe and English horn.
 
How do you feel about leaks? Do you try to avoid them or do you actively follow them?
For the most part my opinion on leaks is "Don't believe unless it comes straight from the horse's mouth/is close enough to release to be plausible". So for most of the leak cycle I don't even care what I'm seeing because the odds of it actually being real is low enough to not matter. In terms of once things start becoming more probable, I'm fine with knowing mechanical or design spoilers (With Pokemon for example I love knowing all the new designs before I go into a game), but I try to avoid story spoilers as much as I can.
 
How do you feel about leaks? Do you try to avoid them or do you actively follow them?
I'm the type of person that wants to know everything (especially new Pokémon) so I actively keep up with leaks. The same applies with big spoiler-heavy movies (like Spider-Man: No Way Home recently). I've tried in the past to stay spoilerfree with things but my curiosity is usually too strong and generally I don't mind being spoiled. I can still have a great time with a game or a movie even if there's not much surprises left.
 
I'm the type of person that wants to know everything (especially new Pokémon) so I actively keep up with leaks. The same applies with big spoiler-heavy movies (like Spider-Man: No Way Home recently). I've tried in the past to stay spoilerfree with things but my curiosity is usually too strong and generally I don't mind being spoiled. I can still have a great time with a game or a movie even if there's not much surprises left.
Pretty much the same. Sometimes the execution can trump surprises, and sometimes it just makes me want to experience the thing even more.
 
How do you feel about leaks? Do you try to avoid them or do you actively follow them?
It depends.
If the leaks are for one of those very rare situations where I actually care about something, be it an upcoming game, novel, or movie, then I will have one of two reactions.

If I think that whatever upcoming media will be good, then I will try to remain as spoiler free as possible. That goes for leaks and even official announcements.

If I have reason to believe that said upcoming media will be bad or awful, then I will not only watch all trailers, but I will actively seek out leaks and spoilers, to determine if whatever it will be worth my money. This happens…pretty rarely, but the example I can give is The Rise of Skywalker.
Disney was 0-2 on the sequel trilogy by that point, and Rogue One was an okay and kinda fun movie. I hadn’t gone to see Solo, since I really wasn’t interested.
I was inclined to go see tRoS, simply because it was the third installment of their trilogy, and I wanted to know if it actually built on what TLJ setup, instead of pulling a TLJ, and tossing away everything that TFA had setup.
Since I didn’t trust Disney, I actively sought out leaks, did not like what I saw in said leaks, and later had said leaks confirmed when the movie came out in theaters.

I still have not seen The Rise of Skywalker, or Solo, and have zero interest in Disney Star Wars at this point.
 
How do you feel about leaks? Do you try to avoid them or do you actively follow them?
Kind of somewhere in the middle, I don't go looking for them but don't actively try to avoid them either. I'd probably prefer not to know about leaks and be more surprised playing a new game or watching a new show/movie but it's pretty inevitable that I'll come across leaks or spoilers anyway so I don't really try to avoid them.
 
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How do you feel about leaks? Do you try to avoid them or do you actively follow them?
I avoid story spoilers so I can experience them myself, but I do look at gameplay changes or developments such as new moves, new Pokémon/forms, base stat totals, etc; I can't help myself not knowing the latter information, aha.
 
Forums question: Is there any reaction (Like, love, etc.) that you had the plans to add but eventually decided to not?

Personal question: Which main series Pokemon games (released after your first one) have you skipped and why?
 
Personal question: Which main series Pokemon games (released after your first one) have you skipped and why?
I haven't skipped any of the main series games so far, I started playing in Gen 2 but I went back and played the Gen 1 games afterwards, I've since played all of the main series games from each of the following gens.
 
Personal question: Which main series Pokemon games (released after your first one) have you skipped and why?
Depends exactly how stringent you are on the definition of "skipped". Since, like, I did technically play Let's Go for about an hour before deciding it wasn't for me and dropping it. So I'd say I skipped it, but you could make an argument that it doesn't count.
I've also skipped BDSP for now since I didn't wanna waste my money on it, but my brother got it anyway so I'll probably play it eventually anyway.
 
Forums question: Is there any reaction (Like, love, etc.) that you had the plans to add but eventually decided to not?
I'm not in charge of adding or developing reactions, but I do know we've been asked a couple of times to add a laughing emote for posts that are funny. The problem is that that kind of emote could lend itself for misuse and potential ridicule of opinions. For that reason we also don't have the Charizard emote or any kind of angry emote as a reaction... adding those would be a really bad idea if you ask me.

We're always open for suggestions however and sometimes we do add new ones! The Staryu emote wasn't a thing until very recently.
Personal question: Which main series Pokemon games (released after your first one) have you skipped and why?
I started playing the main series of games with the release of Diamond in 2006/2007. Since then I have only skipped two main series entries: LGPE and BDSP. I only skipped LGPE because I did not own a Switch yet when it came out and it didn't motivate me to buy one (SwSh did). I am kind of interested in playing it since I haven't played Kanto an awful lot outside of HGSS and the GSC virtual console edition but I am not planning on buying it anytime soon.

I consciously skipped BDSP because it just does not interest me whatsoever. I already felt a great sense of disappointment when the first trailer for it came out and that disappointment only grew bigger once more information about these games came out. I've never been oppposed to buying third versions or remakes, since most of these at least added a number of new things. BDSP has nothing I feel is worth my money, especially for that price.
 
Personal question: Which main series Pokemon games (released after your first one) have you skipped and why?
While I do technically have a copy of Let’s Go, Eevee! and it does have a save file on it, said save file was me rushing through Oak’s preamble and saving at the first possible opportunity, just to create the save file, for…reasons involving my BDSP playthrough.

I may choose to play that at some point, but it really does not interest me. Legends: Arceus also looks like it would be a waste of my time and money, too, so I’m passing on that. It’s not a main series game, though.
 
What is your favourite app/website?
I am legally obligated by the terms of my contract to reply with "Bulbasaur's Mysterious Garden and it's associated services."

For real though I honestly don't think I have a single favourite place on the internet. There's just a ton of different places for good stuff.
 
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