Tag!! You're It!! V3: Welcome to the Garden~

[Welkamo]

@Torchic W. Pip favorite outdoors thing to do, if there is one?

I like walking a lot! I also take a lot of photos of stuff like cool buildings and pretty flowers.

@CuboneKing Favorite Gym Leader?

 

[CuboneKing]

I like walking a lot! I also take a lot of photos of stuff like cool buildings and pretty flowers.

@CuboneKing Favorite Gym Leader?

That’s a tough one. I think I’ll go with Brock, Jasmine, and Volkner.

@Orchid what is your favorite Gary Oak episode in the anime?

 

[Okido]

@Orchid what is your favorite Gary Oak episode in the anime?

all of them duh My answer varies every now and then, but it's usually a toss-up between these three:

Spoiler: list

• EP266 (A Claim to Flame!) - The whole Silver Conference arc is great, but this one in particular has always stood out to me personally.
  
  
• EP171 (Power Play!) - This episode's plot is extremely "mid-Johto filler" but it has some really fantastic moments of characterization throughout it. (His voice actress Yuko Kobayashi also stated in an interview last year that this was her favorite episode for that very reason!!)
  
  
• JN068 (Advice to Goh!) - I just have a soft spot for this one because the sheer amount of excitement and speculation going around these forums leading up to this episode's airing still has not left me, lol. I still think it was the perfect way to reintroduce his character to the series; they knew what they were doin' was important and they handled it very well.

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@pokemoll - What are some of your favorite video game soundtracks?

 

[lisianthus]

Revival (round three?)

@Hawthorn do you have a favorite Pokémon? could it be Deerling...?

 

[airmail]

do you have a favorite Pokémon? could it be Deerling...?

Hi !!
I have many! One of them is definitely Deerling, though, and has been since I was little. I guess it's pretty obvious... Sawsbuck, too - the tree branch antlers are one of my favorite things! While it probably won't be Sawsbuck specifically, I actually really, really want a tattoo of something like that someday ^^
But, uhm, my other favorites are Togetic, Stantler, Ponyta, and Leafeon! I have too many sorry I can never pick just one..

@Blanc hi! I hope you don't mind me bugging you a little
What's a band you feel really sentimental about? Also, favorite location in the Pokemon games?

 

[lisianthus]

(I think I can guess a sentimental band for her already, we'll see~) (also those pokémon fit you very well I think Hawthorn!)

 

[Blanc]

(I think I can guess a sentimental band for her already, we'll see~)

LMAOOO Lisia knows me too well at this point... I'm gonna be so predictable

@Blanc hi! I hope you don't mind me bugging you a little

Of COURSE I don't mind!! I am honored to be bugged by Hawthorn... (Is the Bugsy icon a pun for this?? hehe)

What's a band you feel really sentimental about?

Sentimental... hmmmmmmMM... The very first that comes to mind is a band I've followed for a long time called Mili. Mili gained traction after doing a few songs for the rhythm game Deemo, and I've watched their popularity springboard in real time, as well as Momocashew (Cassie Wei)'s prowess as a singer. I find stuff like that always cool to witness, like a tiny band you're into just starting to succeed. Even more ironic is Mili now does music for Project Moon-- which I am a huge fan of! They also anime OP and ED tracks! It's super cool!

The other two are definitely BMTH and Starset for similar reasons-- followed a long time and watched them grow and their styles shift and change. Linkin Park a little too, ngl??

I absolutely loved their new style in the era where everyone didn't. Evanescence is still a guilty pleasure to a degree since child me would watch endless amounts of Pokemon slideshow MVs to them LMAOOO. But yeah it's cool when stuff feels like it "grows with me" if that makes sense, bonus if I listened to certain songs of theirs at pinnacle moments in my life.

Also, favorite location in the Pokemon games?

Gear Station and the Battle Subway THOUGH I DO LOVE THEM IM JK IM JK. This is... an interesting one! If I had to pick just one, assuming this is for mainline only, I would have to say Mt. Silver or Mt. Coronet. I love areas where the OST takes hold and makes them feel like something is amiss, or a general sense of foreboding. I love all the 'spooky' areas because I'm a sucker for ghost types, don't get me wrong. But areas like those two, the Sinjoh ruins, ruins of Alph, the Pokemon Mansion, Spear Pillar, etc... All of these areas to me evoke a sense of unease, something that isn't exactly 'scary' or trying to be scary, but something about it doesn't feel quite right, or that you are heading into uncharted territory (HIC SVNT LEONES feeling, you know what I mean??) Something about these areas GET me because it felt like the childish whimsy and joy I had suddenly became muted and serious, like a reminder that perils CAN happen to adventuring trainers and the like.

I hope this vibe I'm trying to convey is getting across LOL.

@Torchic W. Pip I'm sure you've been asked this before king, but I simply MUST know... What made Wallace, Steven and Winona your favorite characters and why!!

 

[Welkamo]

@Torchic W. Pip I'm sure you've been asked this before king, but I simply MUST know... What made Wallace, Steven and Winona your favorite characters and why!!

I was born with the blorbo in me.

Joking aside, it's... probably a long story. And no it's not just because they're pretty or that I have no control over my funny brain's interests.

I have no idea why, but ORAS really spoke to me when I first played it, to the point where it became my favourite game over XY. And like... those three really stood out to me for some reason. I think something about the character's intense interests—rocks, art, and birds—spoke to little baby Torchic. I see myself in them, and whether they canonically have autism or not, even just the headcanon is enough to make me feel like I can do great things. Also, like, earth/sea/sky and green/blue/purple as motifs are very good to me. Wallace in particular is so important to me as a positive queer coded/GNC character, a person I can point to and go "...wow" and feel less... alone? I don't know, I feel a special kind of gender something.

@Orchid What do you like about Gary Oak?

 

[Okido]

@Orchid What do you like about Gary Oak?

The truth is he's just a well-developed character! He's worked hard to overcome his flaws and I daresay he's one of the smartest, most accomplished Trainers in the series these days. Sure he can still be a bit snooty and set in his ways at times, but it's made abundantly clear he's got a good heart.

That or I just think Umbreon is cool, either or.

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@Lone_Garurumon - what is your favorite Sonic game?

 

[Lone_Garurumon]

@Lone_Garurumon - what is your favorite Sonic game?

Just a few weeks ago my go-to answer for this one would've been Sonic and the Black Knight. A brilliant concept that is a lot cooler and makes more sense than people try to tell you, gameplay that's actually pretty fun, and some terrific writing. In fact the very last Sonic game to really make me feel something with its story.

But now... Frontiers was a fucking event, dude. It's a flawed game, for sure. There's absolutely criticisms to be made on the execution of some things, it is not a perfect game. But there is a passion in that game. Sonic Team has chosen to give a fuck about their world, characters, and actually telling a good story again. Sonic Frontiers has made me feel things that I haven't felt since 2009. What Frontiers represents is far more important to me than a few flaws. It's a new beginning, a bright future, and if they keep up this style and effort (and Sega corporate actually gives them the fucking time to work on it), then it could be the start of a glorious renaissance. I feel like it'll need to wait for a while to look back with the benefit of hindsight before I can say if it's able to steal the top slot for me, but it's a contender for sure.

@Snowy - What's some of your favourite things about Final Fantasy XIV?

 

[Snowy]

@Snowy - What's some of your favourite things about Final Fantasy XIV?

The gameplay. Except for one class/job that really drives me crazy, XIV's gameplay is pretty fun. While I feel like most of them do have that classic MMO problem of ability bloat, I enjoy most of them. I'm also a big fan of separating "Profession" classes... and am actually kinda a fan of multiple classes on the same character, something that is AFAIK non-existent in other MMOs. There are also small quality of life improvements that XIV has over other MMOs... such as a way to earn flying that is way less frustrating than my other favourite MMO.

The director of XIV, Yoshida Naoki, was and still is a huge fan of said other favourite MMO. And when he was rebuilding XIV after it's failed 1.0 launch, he took what he thought worked from said MMO and rebuilt XIV using lessons from that game. There are some design decisions I do disagree with, even though I completely understand his position (I'd like a DPS meter for my own personal use because I'd love to know how much damage I'm doing)

Uh, what else... The crafting system. While other MMOs have done unique crafting systems before (SWTOR's companion based one comes to mind), XIV's really stands out as unique. And I think that's a good thing.

There are still a lot of things I would bring over from my other favourite MMO if I could... and a lot of things I'd take back from XIV.

I'm not entirely sure who is acceptable to tag so I'll go with...

@Lone_Garurumon Would you rather join the Power Rangers or the Avengers?

 

[Lone_Garurumon]

Power Rangers
The internal and external politics of the Avengers seem like an absolute mess and honestly sound like more trouble than it's worth. Plus, simply on a practical level, superpowers (or adjacent equipment) are requirement for entry to the Avengers, but anyone can be a Power Ranger so long as they're just generally suited for the role (I think, it's been a while since I've actually watched any PR), the powers come as part of the package. Plus I don't see the Avengers handing out giant robots to new recruits.

@Harryghost Congratulations! You've been transported to the world of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. Unfortunately due to budget cuts on the astral plane, they can't afford to give you the personality quiz, so they're just gonna come right out and ask. What small, first-stage Pokemon do you wanna be?

 

[Harryghost]

@Harryghost Congratulations! You've been transported to the world of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. Unfortunately due to budget cuts on the astral plane, they can't afford to give you the personality quiz, so they're just gonna come right out and ask. What small, first-stage Pokemon do you wanna be?

Pansear, no brainer

@BigDocFan would you rather train a Pansage or a Panpour?

 

[BigDocFan]

Pansear, no brainer

@BigDocFan would you rather train a Pansage or a Panpour?

I'd probably pick a Panpour, not entirely sure why if I'm honest

@TheGoldenDuck

If you've played Pokemon Violet, what starter did you pick?

 

[TheGoldenToon]

I'd probably pick a Panpour, not entirely sure why if I'm honest

@TheGoldenDuck

If you've played Pokemon Violet, what starter did you pick?

I haven't played them yet, but I still plan on choosing Quaxly.

@Orchid

Favorite non-Pokemon game OST?

 

[Okido]

@Orchid
Favorite non-Pokemon game OST?

Deltarune, both Chapters 1 & 2 thus far! Toby Fox's music is excellent, and coincidentally it's awesome seeing him also composing for Pokémon games now.

Just off the top of my head, I also like the soundtracks from Mother 3, Mario Kart Wii, Cave Story, Donkey Kong Country 1-3, Tetris (CD-i), Plok!, Bomberman Hero, and pretty much any Touhou game.

---

@Hydrogenium if you were transported to the world of Pokémon, what kind of Trainer do you think you'd like to be? Gym Leader, Coordinator, researcher, none of those?
(also how are you lately? I hope you've been doing well!)

 

[Hydrogenium]

@Hydrogenium if you were transported to the world of Pokémon, what kind of Trainer do you think you'd like to be? Gym Leader, Coordinator, researcher, none of those?

I would like to be a Pokémon researcher (I have no idea what I would like to study, but I have only a vague idea of my career path in this world, too).

Also, I remember that as a kid, I wanted to be a Pokémon Trainer - my mum told me Pokémon are real...

(also how are you lately? I hope you've been doing well!)

Is that small talk? Oh no I'm gonna mess up as usual Thanks for asking, it's really nice of you.
My life has been O.K., although I've been a bit more anxious than I usually am.



@lisianthus have you ever at some point regretted learning Japanese? Also, do you plan to learn one more language in the future?

 

[lisianthus]

@lisianthus have you ever at some point regretted learning Japanese? Also, do you plan to learn one more language in the future?

Regretted...? Well, I guess I've had moments where I've been like 'why have I been learning Japanese in the first place...?' but those were all when I wasn't actively using it at all. Now that I'm actually talking with people in it, and doing translation projects, and reading, it's much more purposeful to me. I still don't know why I started, though... LOL.

As for your second one, that's a really good question! If I had to pick one... it would probably be Russian maybe? (obv I'm not pleased with what's been happening for the past 10 months or so, I just want to make that clear) Something about it seems kind of fun, I guess? But I've also been interested in French because... (?)

And there's actually one 'Japonic' (it's classified as this but that's moreso for geopolitical reasons rather than language similarities) language I'd like to learn, too. Ainu is the language of the indigenous Ainu people of northern Japan, but it's really really really really really endangered. Japan sadly had really bad erasure of their indigenous populations' (multiple, like the okinawan people and ainu) cultures and language, and because of this the only native speakers around are pretty old, sadly. There used to be an extinct variant spoken in the Sakhalian island of Russia (which is really really close to Hokkaido, which is Japan's northernmost island), and Ainu are actually in Russia still too! Which is pretty interesting!

There are efforts being taken up by different organizations (and the Japanese government) to help save it, and hopefully those will revitalize it (although I don't know if I'm exactly confident in the results of those efforts). The language itself is interesting because it uses all katakana (one of the Japanese writing systems, commonly used for foreign names or for emphasis in standard Japanese), instead of... a normal mix of Japanese, with hiragana, katakana, and kanji. like!

これは日本語の文ですが、そんなにスペシャルじゃないです。(kore wa nihongo no bun desuga, sonnani SPECIAL janai desu.) (this is a japanese sentence, but it's not all that special.)

That's... a normal Japanese sentence? Most of it is hiragana, but some of it is in kanji (the big scary things), and the SPECIAL part is katakana. It's pronounced like 'supesharu', but sometimes people just romanize it with capital letters, which I did for convenience here.

But Ainu is just like, all katakana? So if I were to do the same sentence (this is still standard Japanese just written differently),

コレハニホンゴノブンデスガ、ソンナニスペシャルジャナイデス。

God, it's kind of hard to read that way! Hiragana, katakana, and kanji, when used in a sentence nicely, make it so that Japanese doesn't need spaces, which is pretty cool~ likeimagineifiwrotethingslikethis? it's still readable, but it's not easy to read.

But that's the interesting thing about Ainu!! It's, well, there's actually different symbols with it, too? Standard Japanese has something called the small tsu, and it's... a small variant of the tsu kana. つ and っ (ツ and ッ). and there's small variants of the vowels, too あえいおう and ぁぇぃぉぅ, アエイオウ and ァェィォゥ, but it's used for making sounds that don't fit Japanese... normally? Like ファインダー (finder) is written as, basically... fuaindaa (if I were to do it in English stylistically the same, the 'u' sound is negated by the 'a' placed directly after).

But I digress LOL.

So Ainu is written only in katakana!

For example... in Japanese, 'Ainu language' is written as アイヌ語 (Ainu-go), but in Ainu itself, it's written as アイヌイタㇰ (Ainu itak).

The small 'ku' katakana doesn't exist in standard Japanese, ク is the standard version. But in Ainu, to denote a hard stoppage on the 'k' sound (which Japanese doesn't have, so anything foreign that would end in that sound, like 'rink' リンク would be pronounced as 'rinku'), you just make that smaller, into ㇰ, to make the 'k' ending sound. There are more like that in Ainu, but that's one of them.

So, for example, if I wanted to say, 'I'm Lisia', it would be...

カニリシアクネ！ (kani lisia (rishia) kune!)

I'm by no means an expert on it, just kind of talking about what I already know. If you want good resources on learning the Ainu language, here's a very very good YouTube series that also recommends other sources too!

God that was a lot LOL, but it's something interesting right???

also @Blanc I'm going to @ you now!! (hii neesan~~)
I want to ask you though...

Who's your favorite artist? I was kind of wondering that last night... and I know that you have a few different ones that you like (including the one that followed you on twitter after the con lol) , but do you have a favorite? Or does it depend, like there's a mangaka you like, and a digital artist you like, but since it's different artstyles, you couldn't pick one?

 

[Blanc]

also @Blanc I'm going to @ you now!! (hii neesan~~)
I want to ask you though...

HELLO LISIA MY BELOVED!!

Who's your favorite artist? I was kind of wondering that last night... and I know that you have a few different ones that you like (including the one that followed you on twitter after the con lol) , but do you have a favorite? Or does it depend, like there's a mangaka you like, and a digital artist you like, but since it's different artstyles, you couldn't pick one?

I definitely cannot pick just one, but I do have an array of favorites off the top of my head. My fellow digital artists I admire I can think of are: Tira_27, Akua_ma, △○□× (Miwasiba), Deep Sea Prisoner, Fua Yuu (I’d die to commission her), Merengue_Doll and Cinnamoncune (the one I met!) I’m 99% sure there are others I’m just failing to remember the names of, but if you’re curious I’ll send you the works of those I admire later! (I’d link them now, but I’m on mobile…)

And yeah, I tend to rate art by mangaka differently! As for them… CLAMP for sure is up there as an influence in my works. Also Jun Mochizuki is a huge one!! Katsura Hoshino also… !! I hope you can see my drawn influence from each of them LMAO. And yes!! I love a lot of different art styles, it’s SO hard for me to pick one specific type of style I’m drawn to, I almost wish I could have an insanely malleable style myself… LOL. Thank you for asking, Lisia!! I love nerding out about art.

@InfiniteBakuphoon Baku!!! Bakubakubaku!! It’s my turn to ask!! What got you into writing? And like Lisia’s question, is there a style of writing that influences you? Any particular authors or stories?

 

[InfiniteBakuphoon]

@InfiniteBakuphoon Baku!!! Bakubakubaku!! It’s my turn to ask!! What got you into writing? And like Lisia’s question, is there a style of writing that influences you? Any particular authors or stories?

My apologies for taking way too long to reply to this, haha. But there’s a lot to unpack here…

I’ve been doing creative stuff for pretty much as long as I can remember, including writing. As such, it’s honestly kind of hard for me to say exactly where that spark came from except that it was always there, somehow. As for exactly where I got my ideas from, there’s a lot of answers to that question, actually! I’ve always had a wild imagination that seems to be able to turn the most mundane things into something interesting (or interesting to me, anyway, haha), so a lot of my ideas just came from walking around day to day and taking in the world around me, processing it all in my unique, weirdly creative way. Meanwhile, there were also a lot of elements in my stories that were taken more or less wholesale from some of the media that I consumed at the time (mostly cartoons and such), and a lot of them also happened to star some of my classmates, haha, in various roles. Other elements in my stories, however, were wholly original, and even to this day I have no idea exactly how I thought them up. I will say, however, that I was a lot looser with what I was willing to put on a page during those times, which may help to explain the sheer amount of crazy things that I was able to come up with and turn into a story.

Nowadays, things have changed a little bit, and I’ve found that a lot of my ideas have come from asking myself “what if?”. Especially in relation to fanfic. With Mirror Adventures: A Tragedy of False Smiles, for instance, the idea for that basically came from watching XY037 (“The Cave of Mirrors”) and thinking: “well, that was fun, but what if the show went beyond that?”. And with Broken, that basically came from me thinking one day: “what if this happened in the third movie instead?”. In addition, a lot of my ideas nowadays came from seeing something that I thought perhaps had a good premise or a few things that it did really well, but didn’t necessarily execute as well as it could’ve. In those cases, there’s a part of me that wanted to see that potential met, leading me to think about how making this change with that, or maybe having this happen instead, could improve things in my eyes and make for — in my opinion, at least — a better story than the original source material. A lot of this results in what amounts to “fix fic” (although I sometimes try to be stealthy about it, haha), but sometimes I end up with things that are relatively original, taking the best elements out of the aforementioned source materials and applying them to a larger vision that’s ultimately completely my own.

As for types of writing that have influenced me, that’s kind of hard for me to answer, honestly. Especially because, perhaps surprisingly for some, I haven’t actually really read a lot of real books, haha, if you know what I mean. I used to, however, and I believe that a lot of them were adventure books with sweeping and often quite insane plots and highly charismatic characters. I suspect that they might have fueled the adventure stories that my portfolio of writing tended to consist of when I was younger. Today, however, most of my reading material comes from fanfiction. Adventure continues to appeal to me, although much more in an anime sense of the term, I think (unsurprisingly given my love of Pokémon). But I also have a big interest in stories with great drama and tragedy, where characters who are pushed to their limits — and sometimes past them — in a world that’s often cruel — if not flat-out antagonistic — towards them, often in a way that reflects the cold and unpleasant realities of the real world. At the same time, I don’t enjoy pointless suffering, and indeed, I always like stories that have light and hope in all of the darkness. So that means a lot of power of love stuff, a lot of power of friendship stuff, a lot of hurt/comfort stuff, and other perhaps cheesy yet also genuinely heartwarming things. The kind of stories that I like writing, I think, tend to have characters who struggle a lot (and some who might not make it to the end, often tragically so), but who ultimately earn their happy endings. All of which kind of reflects my real-life worldview, I think. I like to think about the best in people, but I also know that I need to be realistic about people as well; simultaneously, I know that you can’t live without being realistic, but I know that you can’t live without having hope, too.

Meanwhile, a part of me kind of wants to get into original writing as well. And when it comes to that, most of the ideas that I’ve thought of have come from… dreams! Yeah, I come up with all kinds of crazy stuff when I’m asleep, including things that I could never imagine myself consciously thinking of, and not just stories, either (for instance, did you know that I’m apparently a master composer who can come up with a lovely song when I’m asleep, but a rather crappy one who can barely string two notes together when I’m awake?). From dreams alone I think I have the foundation for a least half a dozen potentially great stories, if only the foundation. But with some work and a little bit of confidence… who knows?

Now it’s my turn to ask a question here, haha! A simple one (or maybe not?) for @Orchid: How did you get into the Pokémon anime, and what’s kept you interested and/or invested in it for all of this time?