(no subject)
What does it mean to apologise?
If you hang around online communities of any kind, you quickly get to recognise what a non-apology looks like (and the types of people who make them, but they aren't what I've been thinking about). A non-apology says "I'm sorry if you were hurt" where a regular apology would say "I'm sorry I hurt you". Beyond that, you don't really think about what the difference is, apart from grammar. Well, I hadn't.
And it's not totally clear what the purpose of a good apology should be. When you're little, you learn to say sorry because the adults won't let you carry on unless you do. A bit later, when you actually have a sense of guilt, you do it to make yourself feel better. Even later, it might be because you regret it and try to distance yourself from it.
I think what makes an apology good or bad isn't just identifying what went wrong, but dealing with culpability. I say "I think", because I can't know how other people see it unless they tell me. You can acknowledge that what happened was totally regrettable etc., but still come out with something unsatisfying if you try to make out that you weren't responsible - that would be a PR apology. On the other hand, if you really mean to apologise, you aren't looking for forgiveness, or for people to marvel at your integrity, or for things to magically become fine; you just want the recipient(s) to know that you know you fucked up, even though as a responsible person you knew better.
Apologising doesn't presume that suddenly everything is lovey-dovey. It doesn't mean you can go off and do exactly the same again with no hard feelings. What you do afterwards is what does or doesn't fix things. The apology can't.
So, when you reject an apology before hearing it, I don't immediately know what sort of apology you inferred it to be. It could be any of them. But if you really are rejecting this kind of an apology, then you seem to be denying this idea of culpability. I'm hearing "no, you couldn't help yourself, you're not capable of determining your own course of action; only responsible people can be culpable".
Is it passive-aggressive to be annoyed by that, even knowing that it doesn't justify what you already did in any way? Probably. I honestly don't know.
Marginally more interestingly, I beat Pokémon Black in English and feel qualified to tell you all about it yet again! Mainly because I have a million things to write and no inspiration whatsoever thanks to RL drama that I was vaguely alluding to up there.
Playing through Black was my third run-through, so I wanted to mix things up a little and try out all the Unova Pokémon that I thought looked cool but hadn't used previously. That leaves things open for me to try a Nuzlocke, N-run or another of my beloved monotype challenges later. (Bug and Fighting look particularly interesting! The Fighting-type trio would kill all of the difficulty, but then you wouldn't have Surf without a HM slave... hmm.)
The run-down! Please excuse the mythology abuse. I actually started off intending to nickname everyone after Digimon, but that sort of fell flat.
Apollo (Jolly male Pignite) - Flame Charge / Tackle / Arm Thrust / Work Up
The last starter I hadn't tried, and my least favourite design-wise. I can't hate him, seeing how he rampaged through the early game even more than Oshawott, although I had to rely on my monkey against the first Gym because he wasn't a Pignite yet. He probably would have rampaged through a bit more, except my team roster exploded after Burgh (and by exploded I mean added three pokes) and they were all more interesting to level, so he ended up a Strength slave and was boxed after Driftveil.
Hermes (Modest male Pansage) - Cut / Lick / Vine Whip / Work Up
He was only in my party until I could replace him with Petilil, who is cuter and generally awesomer. I think that Pansage and its evolution are the least silly-looking monkeys, but that isn't hard.
Diana (Lonely female Excadrill) - Earthquake / Rock Slide / Swords Dance / X-Scissor
MVP! :DDD There's not much you can say about Excadrill that nobody else has said. I wanted to catch a Drilbur at the earliest opportunity, so getting a half-decent nature was a pain until I caved and bought 20 Repels. She was completely worth the effort, though! I've read a few complaints about how much babying Drilbur needs before it learns Dig, but half of the wild Pokémon at that point will die to a gentle breeze, never mind Fury Swipes. I let her evolve at L36 so she could have Earthquake and Swords Dance long before the seventh Gym. Everything after that was overkill. The _only_ thing she lost against after evolving was Ghetsis' horrible cheating Hydreigon, and that was only because I forgot to use an X Speed on her while setting up in Cofagrigus' ugly face.
Lillil (Modest female Lilligant) - Giga Drain / Sleep Powder / Quiver Dance / Leech Seed
I looked up the in-game trades in BW and noticed that IVs were fixed now, so how could I pass her up? She's very cool, and the EXP boost means she levels up really fast even at her current level of 63. It was also neat that I didn't have to worry about her moveset at all after L28. I counted on her every time I needed to buy a couple of healing turns, and whenever I wanted to catch a legendary. The only reason she isn't the MVP is, well, Diana.
Mercury (Modest male Sigilyph) - Psychic / Shadow Ball / Air Slash / Fly
How can this thing have a gender? How can you even tell? ._. That said, he was solid, but I never got to rely on him the way I did on the rest of my final team. He also lagged in levels a lot - L43 by the Elite Four when everyone else was at least L48 and two were in the low 50s. I tried to put him to use against Caitlin, but her Sigilyph was faster and Ice Beamed poor Merc to death. While exploring the post-game, I switched him out for Ducklett because he learns fewer HMs.
Minerva (Naive female Cinccino) - Tail Slap / Bullet Seed / Rock Blast / Wake-Up Slap
Minccino is cute! And hits deceptively hard with Technician, although Tail Slap's accuracy isn't ideal. Sing is a nice bonus, although I didn't see the need to keep it when I had a Lilligant. It took an entire afternoon to catch a Minccino that had both Technician and an okay nature, which also wasn't ideal. Most of the time I used her to clean up after another attacker was KOed, and she did it very well.
Neptune (Impish male Tirtouga) - Aqua Jet / Crunch / AncientPower / Rock Tomb
I only used him for a few battles on the way back to Nimbasa after reviving him. He made a good tank, but I didn't like his Speed and his Aqua Jet wasn't as good as I would've liked, so I didn't stick with him long enough for Shell Smash.
Saturn (Timid male Ducklett) - Surf / Fly / Dive / FeatherDance
Nobody raves about Swanna like they do about Chandelure or Excadrill or whatever, but it has amazing level up moves and not much Water-type competition in Unova. I used Saturn to clear out the Cold Storage - FeatherDance deals with irritating Gurdurrs faster than they can Bulk Up - and would have levelled him up more in Driftveil's Gym, only Lillil did the job for him. He didn't really do much else before Mistralton, so I boxed him there. He's now my dedicated HM slave, but that doesn't make him not cool.
Mars (Hasty female Chandelure) - Fire Blast / Shadow Ball / Flame Burst / Flash
Despite all the hype, I thought she was a bit underwhelming in-game. She needed a ton of babying as a Litwick, and Flamethrower is annoyingly post-storyline, so she was using Flame Burst most of the time... in the rain, because it's currently Unovan autumn. But she managed to keep up in levels, somehow.
Jupiter (Adamant male Haxorus) - Dragon Claw / X-Scissor / Dragon Dance / Bulldoze
Fuck yeah, Dragon Dance! Dragon Dance by level up about three levels tops after you catch it, no less! After his second evolution, his Attack stat was about 190 when everyone else apart from Diana was languishing at around 100. It's ridiculous.
Acedia (Jolly Cobalion) - Swords Dance / Iron Head / Sacred Sword / Aerial Ace
The RNG seems to be smiling on this savefile for a change. Or maybe it just likes Cobalion - I got an Adamant one when I played Japanese Black. This guy not only is Jolly but has 25 Attack, 29 Speed, plus everything else above 20 apart from Defense (and with 129 base, who cares?). People who actually understand the RNG might sneer at that, but I think it's damn good for not resetting once! (Also there was the Reshiram, who I'll get to slightly further down.) When I found out his IVs, I EV trained him so that I had at least one Subway contender. Then I realised there was no point in trying to get lots of BP if I was going to restart the file later, and traded him to White so I could Subway there. But I do love him. Cobalion has grown on me since I first saw it. ♥
Reshiram (Modest) - Dragonbreath / Extrasensory / Shadow Ball / Fusion Flame
I was going to use him properly, because I was going to restart my savefile anyway, and I'm one of those people who like Reshiram more than Zekrom. Then I lost to Ghetsis, so I had the opportunity to check IVs, and... Modest, 29 SpA, 20 Spd, 26 Def and SpD. That's more than good enough for me to want to EV train :D He did pick up unwanted EVs from N's Zekrom and Carracosta, but meh, I don't think he cares about the single point in HP.
Ira (Timid female Volcarona) - Flamethrower / Hidden Power Fighting / Quiver Dance / Silver Wind
The newest recruit! I hatched the egg that you get on Route 18, but it was Brave, so I bred from it after beating the storyline and transferring a couple of Dittos from HG (but only a couple - I still want to breed a decent Shellder...). She just finished her EV training and level grinding today. I already like her. ♥ Some fans like to say that soft-resetting / EVing / breeding / whatever detracts from the overall experience, but I'm not seeing it, you know? The attachment comes from the time investment. I love my Jolly Dragon Dancing Tyranitar on HeartGold with every fibre of my being, and I'm only half-joking.
Additionally, I finally visited most of the endgame locations, although I haven't properly explored the Abundant Shrine or Relic Castle yet. I really like the music on Village Bridge when the guy under the bridge starts singing - how had I not heard it when I listened to the entire soundtrack on Youtube a while ago? Storyline-wise, it puzzles me how most of the Sages are happy to give you free stuff and philosophise at you when not long ago they basically threatened to kill you, but hey. Looker is as fun as ever.
Two things about BW now annoy me that didn't on my first playthrough: I can no longer change the control scheme to L=A and pretend I'm playing EarthBound, and I'm a bit sad that you can't view ribbons any more. My lovely Raikou will have to stay on HeartGold, where I can take it for walks and admire its status screen at any time. Er, at least I will once I actually get it 65 ribbons.
Now to wonder why I can write this many words of Pokémon and wangst, but not nearly so many of fanfic...
If you hang around online communities of any kind, you quickly get to recognise what a non-apology looks like (and the types of people who make them, but they aren't what I've been thinking about). A non-apology says "I'm sorry if you were hurt" where a regular apology would say "I'm sorry I hurt you". Beyond that, you don't really think about what the difference is, apart from grammar. Well, I hadn't.
And it's not totally clear what the purpose of a good apology should be. When you're little, you learn to say sorry because the adults won't let you carry on unless you do. A bit later, when you actually have a sense of guilt, you do it to make yourself feel better. Even later, it might be because you regret it and try to distance yourself from it.
I think what makes an apology good or bad isn't just identifying what went wrong, but dealing with culpability. I say "I think", because I can't know how other people see it unless they tell me. You can acknowledge that what happened was totally regrettable etc., but still come out with something unsatisfying if you try to make out that you weren't responsible - that would be a PR apology. On the other hand, if you really mean to apologise, you aren't looking for forgiveness, or for people to marvel at your integrity, or for things to magically become fine; you just want the recipient(s) to know that you know you fucked up, even though as a responsible person you knew better.
Apologising doesn't presume that suddenly everything is lovey-dovey. It doesn't mean you can go off and do exactly the same again with no hard feelings. What you do afterwards is what does or doesn't fix things. The apology can't.
So, when you reject an apology before hearing it, I don't immediately know what sort of apology you inferred it to be. It could be any of them. But if you really are rejecting this kind of an apology, then you seem to be denying this idea of culpability. I'm hearing "no, you couldn't help yourself, you're not capable of determining your own course of action; only responsible people can be culpable".
Is it passive-aggressive to be annoyed by that, even knowing that it doesn't justify what you already did in any way? Probably. I honestly don't know.
Marginally more interestingly, I beat Pokémon Black in English and feel qualified to tell you all about it yet again! Mainly because I have a million things to write and no inspiration whatsoever thanks to RL drama that I was vaguely alluding to up there.
Playing through Black was my third run-through, so I wanted to mix things up a little and try out all the Unova Pokémon that I thought looked cool but hadn't used previously. That leaves things open for me to try a Nuzlocke, N-run or another of my beloved monotype challenges later. (Bug and Fighting look particularly interesting! The Fighting-type trio would kill all of the difficulty, but then you wouldn't have Surf without a HM slave... hmm.)
The run-down! Please excuse the mythology abuse. I actually started off intending to nickname everyone after Digimon, but that sort of fell flat.
Apollo (Jolly male Pignite) - Flame Charge / Tackle / Arm Thrust / Work Up
The last starter I hadn't tried, and my least favourite design-wise. I can't hate him, seeing how he rampaged through the early game even more than Oshawott, although I had to rely on my monkey against the first Gym because he wasn't a Pignite yet. He probably would have rampaged through a bit more, except my team roster exploded after Burgh (and by exploded I mean added three pokes) and they were all more interesting to level, so he ended up a Strength slave and was boxed after Driftveil.
Hermes (Modest male Pansage) - Cut / Lick / Vine Whip / Work Up
He was only in my party until I could replace him with Petilil, who is cuter and generally awesomer. I think that Pansage and its evolution are the least silly-looking monkeys, but that isn't hard.
Diana (Lonely female Excadrill) - Earthquake / Rock Slide / Swords Dance / X-Scissor
MVP! :DDD There's not much you can say about Excadrill that nobody else has said. I wanted to catch a Drilbur at the earliest opportunity, so getting a half-decent nature was a pain until I caved and bought 20 Repels. She was completely worth the effort, though! I've read a few complaints about how much babying Drilbur needs before it learns Dig, but half of the wild Pokémon at that point will die to a gentle breeze, never mind Fury Swipes. I let her evolve at L36 so she could have Earthquake and Swords Dance long before the seventh Gym. Everything after that was overkill. The _only_ thing she lost against after evolving was Ghetsis' horrible cheating Hydreigon, and that was only because I forgot to use an X Speed on her while setting up in Cofagrigus' ugly face.
Lillil (Modest female Lilligant) - Giga Drain / Sleep Powder / Quiver Dance / Leech Seed
I looked up the in-game trades in BW and noticed that IVs were fixed now, so how could I pass her up? She's very cool, and the EXP boost means she levels up really fast even at her current level of 63. It was also neat that I didn't have to worry about her moveset at all after L28. I counted on her every time I needed to buy a couple of healing turns, and whenever I wanted to catch a legendary. The only reason she isn't the MVP is, well, Diana.
Mercury (Modest male Sigilyph) - Psychic / Shadow Ball / Air Slash / Fly
How can this thing have a gender? How can you even tell? ._. That said, he was solid, but I never got to rely on him the way I did on the rest of my final team. He also lagged in levels a lot - L43 by the Elite Four when everyone else was at least L48 and two were in the low 50s. I tried to put him to use against Caitlin, but her Sigilyph was faster and Ice Beamed poor Merc to death. While exploring the post-game, I switched him out for Ducklett because he learns fewer HMs.
Minerva (Naive female Cinccino) - Tail Slap / Bullet Seed / Rock Blast / Wake-Up Slap
Minccino is cute! And hits deceptively hard with Technician, although Tail Slap's accuracy isn't ideal. Sing is a nice bonus, although I didn't see the need to keep it when I had a Lilligant. It took an entire afternoon to catch a Minccino that had both Technician and an okay nature, which also wasn't ideal. Most of the time I used her to clean up after another attacker was KOed, and she did it very well.
Neptune (Impish male Tirtouga) - Aqua Jet / Crunch / AncientPower / Rock Tomb
I only used him for a few battles on the way back to Nimbasa after reviving him. He made a good tank, but I didn't like his Speed and his Aqua Jet wasn't as good as I would've liked, so I didn't stick with him long enough for Shell Smash.
Saturn (Timid male Ducklett) - Surf / Fly / Dive / FeatherDance
Nobody raves about Swanna like they do about Chandelure or Excadrill or whatever, but it has amazing level up moves and not much Water-type competition in Unova. I used Saturn to clear out the Cold Storage - FeatherDance deals with irritating Gurdurrs faster than they can Bulk Up - and would have levelled him up more in Driftveil's Gym, only Lillil did the job for him. He didn't really do much else before Mistralton, so I boxed him there. He's now my dedicated HM slave, but that doesn't make him not cool.
Mars (Hasty female Chandelure) - Fire Blast / Shadow Ball / Flame Burst / Flash
Despite all the hype, I thought she was a bit underwhelming in-game. She needed a ton of babying as a Litwick, and Flamethrower is annoyingly post-storyline, so she was using Flame Burst most of the time... in the rain, because it's currently Unovan autumn. But she managed to keep up in levels, somehow.
Jupiter (Adamant male Haxorus) - Dragon Claw / X-Scissor / Dragon Dance / Bulldoze
Fuck yeah, Dragon Dance! Dragon Dance by level up about three levels tops after you catch it, no less! After his second evolution, his Attack stat was about 190 when everyone else apart from Diana was languishing at around 100. It's ridiculous.
Acedia (Jolly Cobalion) - Swords Dance / Iron Head / Sacred Sword / Aerial Ace
The RNG seems to be smiling on this savefile for a change. Or maybe it just likes Cobalion - I got an Adamant one when I played Japanese Black. This guy not only is Jolly but has 25 Attack, 29 Speed, plus everything else above 20 apart from Defense (and with 129 base, who cares?). People who actually understand the RNG might sneer at that, but I think it's damn good for not resetting once! (Also there was the Reshiram, who I'll get to slightly further down.) When I found out his IVs, I EV trained him so that I had at least one Subway contender. Then I realised there was no point in trying to get lots of BP if I was going to restart the file later, and traded him to White so I could Subway there. But I do love him. Cobalion has grown on me since I first saw it. ♥
Reshiram (Modest) - Dragonbreath / Extrasensory / Shadow Ball / Fusion Flame
I was going to use him properly, because I was going to restart my savefile anyway, and I'm one of those people who like Reshiram more than Zekrom. Then I lost to Ghetsis, so I had the opportunity to check IVs, and... Modest, 29 SpA, 20 Spd, 26 Def and SpD. That's more than good enough for me to want to EV train :D He did pick up unwanted EVs from N's Zekrom and Carracosta, but meh, I don't think he cares about the single point in HP.
Ira (Timid female Volcarona) - Flamethrower / Hidden Power Fighting / Quiver Dance / Silver Wind
The newest recruit! I hatched the egg that you get on Route 18, but it was Brave, so I bred from it after beating the storyline and transferring a couple of Dittos from HG (but only a couple - I still want to breed a decent Shellder...). She just finished her EV training and level grinding today. I already like her. ♥ Some fans like to say that soft-resetting / EVing / breeding / whatever detracts from the overall experience, but I'm not seeing it, you know? The attachment comes from the time investment. I love my Jolly Dragon Dancing Tyranitar on HeartGold with every fibre of my being, and I'm only half-joking.
Additionally, I finally visited most of the endgame locations, although I haven't properly explored the Abundant Shrine or Relic Castle yet. I really like the music on Village Bridge when the guy under the bridge starts singing - how had I not heard it when I listened to the entire soundtrack on Youtube a while ago? Storyline-wise, it puzzles me how most of the Sages are happy to give you free stuff and philosophise at you when not long ago they basically threatened to kill you, but hey. Looker is as fun as ever.
Two things about BW now annoy me that didn't on my first playthrough: I can no longer change the control scheme to L=A and pretend I'm playing EarthBound, and I'm a bit sad that you can't view ribbons any more. My lovely Raikou will have to stay on HeartGold, where I can take it for walks and admire its status screen at any time. Er, at least I will once I actually get it 65 ribbons.
Now to wonder why I can write this many words of Pokémon and wangst, but not nearly so many of fanfic...