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baconpal · 5 years

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pokemon isn’t for us anymore

ya that’s right it’s time for a daytime juvenile rant cus i’m angry and finally think i can put my thoughts to words,

if you like the new pokemon then this isn’t really for you, cus pokemon is still for you. enjoy it while you can. otherwise click that read more

i’ll start by making my opinion and background immediately clear, so you have something to compare to and such. I loved Pokemon as a child, and for a long while afterward. I think the series’ highest moment was black and white in terms of art and story, and the gameplay was at its best in black and white 2. Gen 5 is also the gen where I have the most competitive experience.

And my opinion is that every single thing that’s been shown of pokemon sword and shield is really, really bad. Not even as a hyperbolic statement of “wow i hate new thing!” but as a fan who wants nothing but for the series to realize its potential, not one thing they’ve done has made feel anything besides disgust and disappointment. But this is not a normal thing, this isn’t what everyone thinks, i’m not preaching to the choir by saying i hate sword and shield. I’m the contrarian, i’m the one whose saying shit nobody agrees with, and I’m the voice who will be ignored. And that’s because pokemon is no longer being made with someone like me in mind.

The question then becomes, what is pokemon now? What did it used to be? What should it be?

POKEMON AS A BRAND

Pokemon today is not a game series. It’s a brand, a franchise, something that has weight simply by existing. Of course pokemon has been more than just games for forever, the shows, the toys, the side games, everything about it is marketable and marketed. But the main line games were separate from that to an extent. They were the new bits of source material thrown out into the world without concern for how it would all fit together. A video game was made first, and was then marketed to whoever would buy in whatever form hey wanted.

Today pokemon games themselves are a tailored product. People of today don’t care about the actual video game, many wont play it, and many won’t even realize when it comes out, but gamefreak doesn’t need the game itself to sell (though it will), they just want everyone on earth to know about pokemon and to be excited about it, it’s advertising for their brand. As long as people know pokemon exists and is out there, it will make money.

So instead of holding their cards and releasing a video game to let people mess around in, the entire game is drip fed to us on social media before it’s even out. The days of korokoro leaks and blurry photos of pokemon are over, the discussion of what they might be or do is over, and a joy in the exploration of the unknown is gone. Instead, a trailer will be split up in to a chain of individual tweets, all tailored to be as easily digestible as possible. Videos or photos that require seconds of attention, and descriptions of characters and pokemon that make it easy to form a shallow attachment, enough to repost it and say “oh that’s so me” or “love this kind of character”, and that’s free advertisement. the kinds of people who live on social medias will translate genuine advertisements into a form of speak their friends will appreciate and thus engage with the advertisements further. The job is done and pokemon is making more money than ever.

POKEMONS ART DIRECTION

Again, something many disagree with, the art is fucking awful in the new games. But that’s because its not art meant to impress me, an artist with his own design sense and standard of quality, the art only needs to be serviceable, enough for someone who can’t draw to appreciate. The standard of what will be accepted is never actually very high, but pokemon no longer makes any effort to exceed passable. Fanartists will be essentially forced to draw better versions of all their characters since pokemon is once again the hot new thing, so the actual quality of the original art will not be reflected in peoples perception. The model quality as also awful, every design manages to look even worse in motion and in game. But since the goal is not to make an enjoyable game, this is again not a problem.

POKEMONS SETTING

This extends to the clothing the characters wear as well, but pokemon no longer is its own universe. It is doing all it can to act as if it takes place in the real world, and making the clothing its characters wear bastardized versions of modern aesthetics, instead of the unique and simple sudo-sporty aesthetic the other games had, where clothing was cohesive and sleek, looked fit for various kinds of weather, and seemed generally comfortable. The new gym leaders for example, wear horribly messing and unneeded sportswear based mostly on real life soccer clothing, but without any of the benefits, as they are also loaded with unneeded accessories that go in direct contrast to what they’re supposedly doing. Nessa is the worst offender to me (and what do you know she’s the most popular), compared to misty’s attempt at being part time swimmer part time trainer, nessa looks absolutely ridiculous, and not prepared to do either swimming or pokemon battles. She wears a swimsuit, but not an actual swimmer’s suit, and she’s covered in jewelry, accessories, makeup; things that would ruin any attempt to go swimming even casually. And yet she doesn’t look like she could comfortably go on an adventure or catch and raise pokemon. She is a bland aesthetic mess of what people want a cute swimmer girl to be.

Custom trainers are a whole different problem in that no game with custom characters actually has good ones. The best result you can have is funny looking characters, which is actually a pretty good goal, but gamefreak still wants everything to be samey and appeal to broad aesthetics so people can post their own characters and share some feeling of attachment.

POKEMON THE VIDEO GAME

the quality of sword and shield from a technical standpoint is clearly very low, and this is one of the few things people have been willing to call out. The model quality hasn’t improved, the animations are sparse and bad. The wild areas are a mess and run terribly, the game crashed trying to handle multiplayer bosses live on stream. The national dex has been removed for literally no reason. The gyms have been completely gutted and reduced to just the fights (which are still nothing but bland checks for type advantage) and the new gimmick is just “make your guy strong” and is obviously best used in response to the opponent using it. the pokemon wonder around the open area and yet wild grass is still there, there’s no option to approach pokemon peacefully and capture like in let’s go, so even the few out there things they’ve tried aren’t going to be used in any meaningful way. But repeat after me, the game doesn’t matter! As far as gamefreak is concerned, the game could crash 40 minutes in and they would have done all they needed to do.

THE GOAL IN POKEMON

so i’ll end this stupid rant with something the new pokemon games don’t have, even the ones I really like don’t have em. Multiple goals to achieve, multiple ways to approach the game. Even the originals didn’t truly have multiple ways to play, but they started you off by presenting you multiple goals, which were tangled together to start but by the end of the game would become 2 very seperate things, becoming champion and completing the pokedex. Johto did it best, to complete one goal, you had to make a pretty good chunk of progress on the other, it was impossible to not “beat the game” if you actually wanted to accomplish either goal, but after that you were free to tie up whatever goals you had left. It was primitive and mostly meaningless, but it was there. The shows and the manga also put a lot of emphasis on the fact that every trainer can do something different, and their own ultimate goal is completely different from everyone else.

The closest the games come now to this idea is having your rivals go off and do something else other than fight the elite 4. Some of them aren’t even actual rivals and just like pokemon, like lyra from HG/SS. But there is no pokemon game in which you, the player, are presented a goal other than to beat the game, winning the elite 4 and defeating some evil plot along the way.

For me, an ideal pokemon game would be about giving complete freedom, start off with some explanations of what all the possible goals are, completing the dex, becoming champion, winning all the contests, defeating the evil organization, exploring the world, anything. And once the player gets an idea of what they want to do, they’re set free into a world where they can find pokemon and do whatever they want, working towards whatever goal they want. Other aspects will naturally come into play, battling pokemon and making them stronger would help you catch more pokemon, learn moves for contests, explore more dangerous areas, beat stronger trainers. So no matter what goal you have, you’d still interact with many of the systems and areas in the game, and make progress on all goals at the same time, but ultimately feel satisfied when you accomplish your own, personal goals, instead of following the straight line gamefreak set for you.

Obviously that sort of thing will never happen. That’s just what I think pokemon has the potential to become, but pokemon isn’t made for me, anymore.

Thank you for reading.

#juvenile rant #pokemon swsh #pokemon #and ye that's that feel free to disagree but atleast take a moment to really think about what pokemon is to you

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poke-trainer-tsuki · 4 years

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Pokémon Headcanon Meme from @memeingovermemes

Hi there! My name’s Tsuki and I’m from Kalos! I figured I would just answer all of these as my introduction to you all!

☀️ : Who is your character’s partner Pokémon? Do they prefer to stay outside of their Pokéball? What’s their dynamic with their trainer?

Back home, my partner was (and still is) Pumpkaboo! When I was around 9, my mother and I were taking a walk and came across a lone Pumpkaboo on our normal route in the local forest. I got so excited and my mother helped me catch her and ever since, we have been best friends! She is shy like me and really only likes to stay out of her Pokéball when we are at home or somewhere familiar to her. She’s EXTREMELY sweet, but very protective of me since we’ve been together for what feels like forever.

🌗 : Does your character have a favourite Pokéball? Which ones do they use the least?

My favorite Pokéball would have to be the Moon ball. I remember the first time I ever saw one, and immediately fell in love. Space has always been super interesting to me and seeing a ball with the moon on it, just made me so happy and excited. I once tried to be slick and try to catch an Umbreon in a Moon ball. I learned VERY quickly that it wasn’t going to work. I still managed to catch the Umbreon that day though so I wasn’t too sad. The ball I use least is probably the Luxury ball or the apricorn balls. Ones super expensive and the others are SUPER rare.

💾 : What is your character’s Pokémon team? Any Pokémon they don’t have currently in their team (in their PC Box or elswhere)?

As of right now while traveling through the Galar region, my team consists of, a “Gigantamax” (I think that’s what they called it) Corviknight, My Pumpkaboo, Cinderace, Silvally (Whom I caught as Type Null while traveling through Alola), Flapple, and Zacian. I think back home I caught maybe only 50 Kalos originating Pokémon and MAYBE 40 Alolan Pokémon. In Galar, I have completed my Pokédex and then some!

😀 : Describe one of your character’s relationships with their Pokémon.

My relationship with my Pumpkaboo has such a different dynamic than my other Pokémon. She’s basically my sister at this point and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I remember when I was little, I was extremely afraid of the dark and honestly I still kind of am, but she would act as my nightlight and make sure nothing scared me at night. Most people think that all ghost Pokémon give you nightmares, and while some do, she has never done that to me.

👥 : Does your character travel with anyone aside from their Pokémon?

So far during my time in Galar, I’ve been traveling alongside my friend “Panda”! He’s learning as much as he can so he can officially be a professor one day so any time I have a question, he’s right there to answer to the best of his ability! Right now, he’s teaching me the ins and outs of putting together a great competitive team.

♠️ : Does your character specialize in a Pokémon type or do their types vary? Do they pay much attention to type match-ups?

I don’t really specialize in any certain type of Pokémon. Though I do prefer having a great speed stat so I am able to move first (unless the opposing trainer uses a priority move). I do my best at remembering type match ups. When Pokémon become dual types is when I have the most trouble though.

🗻 : What type of journey is your character on? Are they tackling the Pokémon League, engaging in contests, on researching endeavors, a ranger scouting for danger? Or do they have a more ‘normal’ occupation? What type of life do they lead?

I recently decided to take part in the Galar Gym Challenge. I am definitely nervous doing these challenges, but I’ve been learning so much from each and every gym leader here! Back home, I was more of a breeder/groomer in my spare time.

🌟: Has your character met any Legendary Pokémon before? If so, what were the encounters like? Do they have any Legendary Pokémon on their team? If not, do they believe in Legendary Pokémon?

I have only met two Legendary Pokémon so far. In Alola, it was Type Null whom I managed to evolve into Silvally while in Galar, and Zacian in Galar. Both encounters were extremely scary and nerve wracking to me. It took so much patience and effort to get Type Null to trust me back then, but I don’t regret it one bit. Even now, there are days where he has his moments of distrust, but I always manage to calm him down and remind him that I’m not here to hurt him. He prefers to sleep near me at night as well just like Pumpkaboo does and honestly I wouldn’t have it any other way. Zacian on the other hand acts like a guard dog at night and if something is wrong he alerts Silvally before waking me up. It’s definitely a weight off my mothers shoulders knowing I’m being protected so well though.

🍼 : Are there any Pokémon your character has difficulty handling? Are there any they find easiest to raise?

Right now, Silvally has been a little hardheaded and doesn’t listen to me sometimes. He hasn’t really been aggressive or anything, but I might have to take him to a professor to get him checked out because I’m worried something’s wrong. As much as I love Nurse Joy, I don’t think she has the knowledge on him in that regard.

🐤 : Does your character use Daycares? Or do they manage all the training and caretaking themselves?

I do my absolute best to take care of my Pokémon myself. I also prefer to oversee my Pokémon when it’s mating season as well. You learn a lot about them when you’re the one in charge and I love learning!

🕶 : Are there ‘troublemaking’ Pokémon on your character’s team? If so, how do they tackle these troubles?

I don’t think I’ve ever really had a troublemaker on my team except MAYBE Mimikyu when he’s having a bad day. But usually when that happens, I take him out for some “alone time” with me and I treat him to special poké-treats and playtime.

🥘 : Is your character any good at making Poffins?

I’d say I’m pretty good at it! Definitely not the best, but my Pokémon seem to enjoy the ones I make!

🎊 : If your character takes part in contests, what category is their favourite? What are the best at? What are they worst at?

Oh gosh. I’ve tried my hand at contests...they definitely aren’t for me. I’ll just keep to making Poké-treats and grooming my Pokémon.

📱 : How full is your character’s Pokedex?

I haven’t completed my Kalos dex, nor my Alolan dex as of yet. However Galar was the first dex I was able to complete with the help of my friend whom I call “Panda”.

✨ : Has your character ever encountered a shiny Pokémon ? Do they have one in their team?

Funny enough, my Pumpkaboo that my mother helped me catch whom I brought to Galar with me, was shiny! I remember asking my mother why she was purple instead of orange like the ones I saw in my textbooks from school, and she explained to me that my Pumpkaboo was rare and super special. Recently in Galar, I encountered and caught a shiny magikarp in this instance event they called a “raid”. I was able to get him to evolve into Gyarados and to be blunt, I think I prefer his shiny form over his natural colors!

🎲 : Has your character ever been to a Game Corner or equivalent? How much time do they spend there? Have they ever gotten really lucky at the slots?

I’ve been MAYBE a handful of times with Panda, but I usually don’t spend a lot of pokédollars. I’m never lucky when it comes to playing games like Panda is, so I just end up watching him play and cheer him on.

🌑 : How does your character handle villainous organizations? Have they ever encountered one? How did that go?

Back home, I was utterly terrified with my first ever run in with Team Flare. I’ve always been super shy and take things to heart too much. By god when I had to battle Lysandre, I thought I was going to faint, that’s how intimidating he was to me. But as I continued to travel, I learned new ways to cope and now in Galar, I’m not so scared. Team Yell for sure isn’t as intimidating as Team Flare back home as of yet.

⛔️ : Has your character ever mistaken an owned Pokémon for a wild Pokemon and tried to catch it?

I probably have when I was a tiny child, but as I’ve been older to understand really how catching Pokémon works, I have never mistaken one for a wild Pokémon. Thankfully.

🚴: Does your character own a bicycle? Can they ride it? Are they constantly lectured by their professors for riding it where they’re not supposed to?

I do have one! I obtained one a little into my journey in Galar! It’s super cool! It has a Rotom inside it to help me go faster and ride across water! I haven’t been lectured about riding it though. Now back home however, I had a pair of roller blades and my professors would CONSTANTLY have to remind me to take them off when going inside anywhere because I would always forget I’d be wearing them.

🎣 : Does your character fish? Do they have any luck with it? If so, what’s the biggest Pokémon they’ve caught? What’s the smallest?

I do here and there. Most of the time I don’t really find anything exciting. The biggest thing I’ve found was a Luvdisc in Alola and the smallest was a Wishiwashi in Galar.

🎃 : Do any Pokémon types unsettle your character? Do they have a phobia of them? Why?

Oh my gosh! I have such a phobia of bug type Pokémon! I had a scary run in with a spinarak a good few years ago and have had the phobia since. I’ve never liked bugs to begin with though so this bad experience just made it worse.

📖 : Did your character go to Pokémon School? If so, was it public or private? Were they homeschooled?

I did! I went to a public school as my parents were never gifted with the kind of money needed to send me to a private school. Though, I met Panda YEARS after I finished school through another friend of mine. As a child I absolutely hated school, but as I grew older, I became so much more interested in learning about Pokémon that I grew to enjoy it more and more as the years passed.

I hope you all were able to get to know me a little better and I hope I can learn more things from new people soon! Feel free to send me asks as I’ll answer them as best as I can!

#pokemon #yes that is my trainer card from Galar #trainer answers #personal #pokemon trainer #introduction

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bleedandevolve · 6 years

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Monsters and Men vs Bleed and Evolve: Why change?

I’ve spoken a lot about Monsters and Men, our previous forum and name, and I realized I should have made an entry like this sooner. Basically, I want to address what’s with all the change and why.

I’ve already covered some topics, like how enemies are starting to become their own mechanic instead of having to stat out new characters, essentially, every time you want to beat something up. How starting gear got a bit of a change with the pokemon zodiac, and other things as well. I’ll try not to re-cover those topics here.

Story time!

When I started Monsters and Men, it was because I fell in love with tabletop rpgs and had no one to play them with. My cousin, who was the only Dungeon Master I knew, decided he hated running games and abruptly stopped. I turned to the internet, but knew I wanted something specific, that I didn’t want to reinvent my old forum Chasing Our Spirits, because when I look back on it, it felt like a colossal failure to me. I wanted something similar though. I wanted to take pokemon and “ruin” it so to speak, then mash it together with tabletops. Pokemon has always been my biggest love of any sort of fandom, ever since I was very, very young, and Pokemon Yellow came out. I got a Gameboy Color just for that, and it took me hours to figure out how to leave the first house because I was a dumb kid. I sobbed when the batteries died in my Gameboy and I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t play anymore. I watched the Pokemon anime whenever I could, I even went so far as to demand the Pokemon mac and cheese shapes over any other kind of shapes (the shapes are the best tasting and you won’t convince me otherwise).

I joined a few other pokemon roleplays after Chasing Our Spirits was closed down, and realized it still wasn’t fitting what I needed. That eventually spurred me into making my own again. I tried to delve into the world of tabletop rpgs, of which I was completely new to. A lot of my cousin’s rpgs were improvised on the spot, with little to no mechanical involvement. Anywho, I contacted my old friend Amissa, who I knew from back when I started this whole mess, with a little rp in a pokemon collectible's roleplay section on their forums. The roleplay was Shadow over Alleos, which I also consider a disaster, but it did teach me a few things.

We started working on what would become Monsters and Men. She had more experience than me with tabletops at this point, but I spearheaded the mechanics, thinking that I could get by with what research I did on FATE and Chaosium’s Basic Roleplaying System.

Oh how wrong I was.

It became abundantly clear to me immediately after we opened in beta that we weren’t attracting people who wanted to tell a story where dice played a role. They wanted to “win” the roleplay, and quickly broke my system to make themselves very powerful. Being young and naive, it took me a while to figure out how to put my foot down and start trying to fix things, not to mention my social anxiety making it difficult for me in general. But slowly, I kept trying to fix things, and improve them. Members largely came and went, though we had a few who stuck by our side (thank you guys, you have no idea how much that meant to me).

But I still felt like I was only band-aid fixing everything. I didn’t know enough about tabletops to really fix the system in a way that wasn’t tedious to use (our later system) or completely easy to break (our earlier system). While the later system made things harder and more threatening, the fact that you had to go through useless skills to make better ones and then drop the old useless ones actually made zero sense and I don’t know why I kept running with it.

In addition, I had the luxury of seeing a few sites try to mimic my system and watched how the system fared there. I kept coming to the same conclusion though: something needs to change. A lot of things need to change.

Let me show you the problems I had and how I’m addressing them:

Problem: Skills are tedious to use because so many of them are garbage. Solution: Revamp the skill system entirely. I’ll go over how we almost completely changed skills at a later date when I’m sure I have more of it figured out, and more testing is done, but suffice it to say, I launched myself into research. I started backing rpg manuals on Kickstarter, I asked for them for Christmas, I went out and bought them and began to hoard them. I read them cover to cover, things ranging from Pathfinder to Dungeon World to Fireborn. I’m still in this process, making sure that I’m not missing anything, to make sure that things are ready to go and hopefully in better shape this time when we re-open.

The problem with the old system was that skills had to be “Generalized”, then you could “branch” a skill when it reached a certain rank to “Specialized” which could do more cool things, and then “Unique/Expertise” which could do the best stuff, but you had to level all of those skills individually. Instead of being useful, it just created a step ladder of skills that you never came back down from.

Problem: Enemies take forever to stat up and it makes combat slow to a crawl and makes people (like me) not want to post ever. Solution: At first, my solution was that I was going to improve the skill system. However, when I figured one out that I liked, I ran into the issue that it would be impossible to do without a second person. And impossible to automate, even if I paid the big bucks to someone to develop it for Xenforo. Not to mention paying them to maintain it through updates! So then it clicked, as I said in the last entry...Why did the two systems have to be the same? Who said? Well, they were wrong. I’ll give you guys an update on the new enemy system soon, I promise!

Problem: Equipment is either too powerful, or not powerful enough. Solution: Tear it up and start anew. I’ve been through so many different equipment systems I can’t even remember a lot of them. But the one I have right now I’m pretty satisfied with. I hate to say it again, but stay tuned! I’ll go over the new system soon. Problem: Pokedex (and wiki pages in general) pages were all over the place. Solution: Fuck it, make a new wiki. Start fresh. (Noticing a pattern in how I solve these issues?) It will, of course, suck to move all of that information over, but we’re changing so much to begin with that it’s not even worth trying to fix up the old wiki. Problem: Lore is all over the place, or not covering things that people need. Solution: Hand it to our local lore nerd lorekeeper Aurora. She’s extremely passionate about the setting of Bleed and Evolve, and I trust her completely with it. We have a pretty great connection when it comes to what we want out of the world of Cimmeria, and I know she’ll give it her all. I really want Cimmeria to feel like a living, breathing world you can immerse yourself into and be completely taken away. Did you ever want to know how much metal and what kind of metal 100 scrap traditionally is? Weight included? We got you covered.

Problem: There’s no good way to restrict certain types of characters (escaped pokemorphs, ect). Solution: Meta currency, my friends. Separate from scrap, which is in-game currency, the meta currency “Diamonds” will be gained from different activities, like being a Storyteller. Diamonds can be exchanged for access to a rare character type, like an escaped pokemorph. Problem: Quests are very same-y and boring. Solution: Change the system! You can see what I did in an earlier entry, but the short answer is that the whole system needed to be gutted. We had it automated on Monsters and Men, but I would trade it in a heartbeat for what it is now. What’s the bottom line answer to the question I asked in the title? We changed because I hated the direction we were going. We changed because it wasn’t working, it was time for something new. And we changed because I knew more this time around. There are so many different reasons why we rebranded as Bleed and Evolve, but one of them was because I wanted to shed some of the problems Monsters and Men had. Not to forget about them, but to start anew. We needed to make way for something better.

On that note, I think I’m going to stop this entry here. Stay tuned for more Developer Diaries, possibly one tomorrow as an update to The Enemy Turn! - Thief

#pokemon roleplay #dark pokemon #pokemon rp #tabletop rp #pokemon tabletop #gritty pokemon #bleedandevolve #forum rp #forum roleplay

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ganymedesclock · 6 years

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So I got into a conversation with a bunch of other Voltron fans and we came up with pokemon for Team Voltron, Team Sincline, Zarkon, Haggar, and the original paladins. Kept it to two per person for sanity’s sake.

Lance: Primarina & Milotic (shiny)

Both feebas and popplio got kinda dumped on (feebas in-universe, popplio before their other evolutions were revealed) and the shiny milotic, I will not lie, is inspired straight from a comic that I thought did a good job of capturing Lance as a person. One of my friends aired the idea of Lance being involved in pokemon contests.

You bet your butt they’re the best-groomed pokes you have ever laid your eyes on. Knock knock the gorgeous squad has arrived.

(Honorable mention: a gyrados that Lance evolved himself, because he’s that kinda supportive person who’d stick it out with a magikarp)

Keith: Talonflame & Absol

Absol would probably be his signature pokemon even if it’s not his “type”- it’s a prophet able to predict danger, but also described as reclusive and misunderstood since it wants to protect people but is often blamed for misfortune- much like Keith internalizes a lot of his isolation as being his own fault.

Talonflame is light, portable, and can explore wide open places scouting around, suitable for Keith’s love of the outdoors. Also, giving Keith a part flying type reflects a bit of his relationship with Shiro, the Sky Paladin- maybe that Fletchling was a gift?

Shiro: Skarmory & Mightyena

As both the Paladin of the Sky and someone who is marked in part by his incredible determination and resilience in the face of adversity, Skarmory’s steel/flying type makes perfect sense, as well as being a real cool pokemon for a real cool guy.

Mightyena fits with his colors, but more with his ideals, as a pack hunter with a powerful sense of loyalty- Shiro is someone very conscious and empathetic to the team. And pairing Shiro with a dark type (especially one that in the gen it was introduced, was the staple of the villain teams) reflects the other side of his determination- that he isn’t afraid to act in the guise of a “bad guy” to protect said team. He also tends to try and see the good in shady-seeming allies, like his sincerity towards Rolo and Ulaz- and even a bit of his connection with Keith.

Pidge: Rotom & Phantump

Rotom is a shoe-in given Pidge’s technological focus, especially if we’re assuming they’d have a device like the Rotomdex that lets them communicate with Pidge- a level of connection with technology and pokemon alike that’s not always common or intuitive.

Phantump, out of all of the potential grass types, stuck out to me because Phantumps are the spirits of lost children- and while Pidge’s family was taken from her more than she was from them, I think it’s something she’d relate to as a lost child herself, feeling a little lonely and bereft. Phantump’s fearsome evolution also suggests towards how Pidge is growing up and turning very dangerous to cross- she’s not going to let people just walk all over her family. So- lonely child, turning fearsome guardian of the forest. “Haxus is dead and you’re next.”

(Honorable mention: Porygon because Pidge is an enthusiast of classic sixteen-bit graphics after all)

Hunk: Aggron & Bastiodon

Certain ‘dex entries describe Aggron as a creature that landscapes its territory by planting trees, suggesting a nurturing side to what is also a highly dangerous steel-coated dinosaur.

That combined with Bastiodon being a fossil pokemon suggesting Hunk would have had to have nursed it back to life, I think both do a good job reflecting both Hunk’s formidable combat capabilities and the warm, nurturing way he relates to his allies. He’s a stone wall that you’re not going to shove around very easily. I’d imagine both of his pokemon as very gentle-tempered creatures, much like Hunk himself, but not to be crossed.

Allura: Audino & Xerneas

When Allura’s powers seem overwhelmingly geared to fortify and renew, it stands to reason she seems both divinely inspired and ludicrously powerful- hence pairing her with the life-focused legendary Xerneas.

Audino is a healer, and capable of mega-evolution- like Allura, a creature more concerned with preservation but utterly unafraid to get in there and take some names.

Coran: Kricketune & Probopass

Mustache, he’s full of sass, his team can still kick your ass.

No, really, Probopass’s rock/steel typing is a nice nod to Coran’s resilience of spirit and his technical stripes and giving him a couple of goofy-looking yet still genuinely strong pokemon is right up Coran’s alley.

Zarkon: Hydregion & Tyranitar

Hydregion is a massive, fearsome, and highly aggressive dragon type. The shape of its wings has a passing resemblance to the wing spokes on Zarkon’s armor. It also evolves from the well-meaning-if-bitey Deino, getting increasingly dangerous through its second and then final evolution- which nicely reflects how Zarkon was a prickly elitist to start but pretty much got worse and worse.

It and Tyranitar are both pseudo-legendaries and Tyranitar can mega-evolve, reflecting nicely that Zarkon is both a very scary person to cross and that he’s probably not really the type for a lot of real dedicated pokemon strategy as much as brutalizing would-be enemies with devastating force.

Haggar: Nihilego & Darkrai

Yveltal is not necessarily part of her actual fighting team, but she totally uses it as part of the Komar- which would possibly imply in this AU, Yveltal is rescued and taken into custody by the Blade of Marmora.

As far as the two she does use- while Haggar’s perfectly capable of leveling people in direct combat, she much prefers to fight like a living nightmare. Nihilego being able to control others, as well as its extradimensional nature as an Ultra Beast nicely reflect Haggar’s history as a scientist who researched other realities and was fascinated by the rift creature- heck, in this AU Nihilego may be one of the rift creatures that stuck around.

And Darkrai is a literal master of nightmares. Haggar’s propensity to root around in and manipulate others by using fear and deception is nicely represented here.

Lotor: Sylveon (shiny) & Silvally

Lotor’s keen sense of what it means to inspire true loyalty means he’d pick his team out of creatures he’d have a very intimate bond with- so he has two pokemon that only evolve with high friendship. That Silvally’s type-switching ability is massively effective with the sort of study-opponent-and-then-hit-them-precisely-where-it-hurts strategy Lotor uses would probably just be icing on the cake.

And, yeah, Silvally (or rather, Type:Null) totally exists in the first place in this AU because thanks, Haggar.

Sylveon being a pure fairy type, would have obvious type advantages to both Zarkon’s hydregion and Haggar’s darkrai- but also, as an empathetic pokemon highly loyal to its trainer, I imagine it’s done a lot to help him keep his head together. And its not-so-kindly Sun and Moon pokedex entries would mean that, as a clever and deceptive predator, it could more than pull its weight as his ally.

Narti: Liepard & Hypno

Narti’s manipulation appears to read much more like sleepwalking than nightmares- the host’s amnesia and trancelike calm, for example, so using a Hypno as her pokemon works just fine.

You might wonder how exactly Kova feels about the liepard, to which, I reply: Kova is the Liepard. In this AU, Narti’s connection with Kova would probably extend to her entire team, allowing her to direct and coordinate with her pokemon instantaneously.

Ezor: Kecleon & Salazzle

Kecleon being able to pull a disappearing act itself means that she could carry at least half of her team covertly with her while sneaking around, and Salazzle, being a poison type, also lends well to Ezor’s inclinations as an assassin-like ambush fighter.

Also, with Ezor being pretty reptilian herself, I can see her favoring similar pokemon.

Zethrid: Incineroar & Pangoro

This started purely because I saw multiple people say that Keith should have a Litten because fiery darkness cat, in complete ignorance of the fact that Litten grows up to be a wrestler tiger, which is the exact opposite of a thing Keith would be cool with. Zethrid, though.

She probably trains her pokemon by personally sparring against them.

Acxa: Gallade & Houndoom

Acxa’s knightly sense of honor and her fierce loyalty reflect well in both Gallade and Houndoom, given the latter’s a pack hunter. Also given her various meaningful clashes with Keith, her Houndoom could probably meet his Absol blow for blow.

Both her pokemon, like Acxa herself, are light on their feet and agile attackers.

Alfor: Solgaleo & Pyroar

You were probably expecting to see Solgaleo a lot higher on this list, but I wanted to give Allura and Haggar opposing legendaries and someone rightfully pointed out Lunaala doesn’t deserve that.

Also, as the original paladin of the Red Lion, and the original architect of Voltron, he’s the Fiery Lions guy.

Blaytz: Garchomp & Mantine

I won’t lie to you this is 99% because Blaytz is a shark-manta man, but, he’d be pretty limited to water types since he appears to hail from an oceanic planet himself.

I imagine him cruising around on Mantine’s back in more peaceful times.

Trigel: Tsarina & Cradily

Unlike Hunk, I imagine Trigel having a fossil pokemon because she was actually alive at the same time they were.

Tsarina is mostly there because as little as we saw of Trigel, it definitely seems like she had an edge to her and could veer harsh with her joking around.

Gyrgan: Chesnaught & Camerupt

Big, powerful tanks- a fighting type considering Gyrgan was seemingly an unarmed brawler when we see him and the other original paladins rescuing Alfor, and Camerupt because of the very camel-like beasts of burden we see in our brief glimpse of Rygnirath.

#voltron legendary defender #vld #Pokemon #Voltron pokes #Keith #Shiro #Lance #Pidge #Hunk #Allura #Coran #Zarkon #Haggar #Lotor #Narti #Acxa #Ezor #Zethrid #Gyrgan #Alfor #Trigel #Blaytz #readmore

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damostaranth-arts · 7 years

Photo

Note: a lot of these are pretty much half-invisible at the tumblr preview resolution, but they’re a lot clearer when opened at full, so please do that =D

Day 18 - yet more eeveelutions, but this time from my (no longer really) brand new tablet!

Okay, so it turns out getting a tablet didn’t exactly invigorate my artistic enthusiasm. It’s been waaaaaay too long since my last post, but that time has been spent trying to get my head around this thing, and I think I’ve managed a bit.

So, the first and strongest lesson with a tablet seems to be: Consistent line weight is HARD.

Eevee: The first serious image I drew on the tablet, (e)eve(e)n at this relatively low resolution it’s very clear that the lines on this are an absolute mess. Which is a shame, because apart from that I’m quite happy with the critter! The paws could use some work but apart from that it’s a pretty good ‘vee.

Glaceon #1 - I think this one I was more than a little rushed while I was drawing? This was drawn months ago, but between the very sketchy layout and the fact I have a couple of obvious lines that should have been erased (head around the ear, down the leg) I don’t think this actually counts as finished.

Glaceon #2 - I took a couple months’ break from drawing between Glaceon #1 and #2, and when I sketched this out I pretty clearly forgot what size I was drawing the rest of them ‘cos it’s about half what it should be. Once I realised that I stopped caring too much about it and moved onto the next one, I was just trying to get back into the rhythm, and then drew...

Flareon - AUGH how does that neck ruff look so soft! Just want to bury my hands in it (and have them burnt off, by memory of the old games’ pokedex that floof is about 1100 degrees or something XD) But pretty happy with this one, and glad that I seem to remember how to do a decent bit of floof. This is also the point where I discovered the wonders of turning up the ‘stabilisation’ setting on the tablet, which makes my shaky lines a lot less ugly. Unfortunately at this resolution the lines simply aren’t thick/dark enough, and I probably should go over it again with a darker outline, like I did...

Sylveon - This one gave me an awful lot of trouble at first, I had a real struggle getting the head, face, and especially ribbons to look even vaguely decent, but I think in the end they came out quite well. This one took an awful lot of time to clean up, and the outlines are far better than the Eevee, between the stabilisation and effort put in - though still needing a lot of work. The lines are quite uneven if you zoom in more than a little, and the head and most of the ribbons have a noticably thicker weight than the body, legs and tail.

I’m particularly pleased as punch with the paws (probably for the first time) and general body shape. Shown here is obviously before and after I line weight’d it up, but I think I’m gonna have to come up with a better way of doing this - I think I’m just not using the best settings in the program to begin with. I’ll be trying some new ones for the next pic.

And the next one will probably be some non-Eeveelution pokemon, or back to ponies for a bit. Once I’m comfortable with my general ability to sketch, I’ll flip back to human anatomy and focus on that for a while. Hopefully should be seeing that progress soon, now that I’ve hit my stride a bit with this beastie.

#Damos arts #eeveelutions #eevee #glaceon #flareon #sylveon #digital #line weight #paws

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