'Cause I have to do what you couldn't. And that's that.
Back pain. So much back pain. Given my poor posture, I'm going to be completely crippled by the time I reach my 40s. It's amazing how much back pain can ruin an otherwise average work day, augh.
Aaaaaaand it looks like Pokemon Diamond & Pearl will cap off at 191 episodes, just one short of the Advanced Generation series. It seems like they really are getting rid of Brock this time in the penultimate episode. I know they've teased him leaving at the end of a series only for him to come back a few episodes in to the next, but for all those times they never really had a major Brock-centric episode dedicated to said teasing. Usually it's just the last 5 minutes of an episode or so. Given that we've gone this long without seeing any trace of Brock in the Best Wishes series and it looks like Dento will be taking up the third slot in Ash's travel party is a pretty good sign that this'll be it for Brock for a while. Granted, he's been in over 600 episodes of the entire anime (so he pretty much only falls short to mainstays Ash/Pikachu/Team Rocket), but somehow I think I'll still miss him. I always liked Brock no matter how useless he seemed or how tired his flirting routine got. DP at least made that entertaining every time with Croagunk buttraping him for it. Plus they at least did a good job in making Brock relevant to the Team Galactic plot.
I really hope we get at least one more appearance with Conway, even if it's just post-League blahness or whatever. We've still got Barry on board until the end of the League at least, and we're in the midst of Paul's three-parter of a last hurrah (he'll probably appear in the Darkrai episode too); after the League though, I imagine we'll be saying goodbye to all three of those guys simultaneously. And naturally, they're the ones I'll miss the most.
The first part of the Paul battle was already OMGWTFAMAZING in several different ways. They definitely managed to put Dawn to good use (seeing as her story arc's been over with since like, late spring) because I was in utter shock that they gave Dawn and Paul so much one-on-one dialog. Not to mention the hilarity of Dawn walking in on and eavesdropping on Paul right as he managed a smile at his brother. Dawn, you're totally no better than Conway now. She's actually been pretty awesome during the League; getting creeped on multiple times by Conway, actually mocking the way Paul speaks to Barry, and now this. It's very nice, very fresh. I've always been okay with Dawn, but what dragged her down for me was her boring-ass journey, which I mostly blame on her rivals and the disproportioned screentime distributed with her Pokemon.
Still, this episode brought up a point that I thought was the case all along: Paul thinks Ash and Reggie are a lot alike, and that bothers him. So I'm glad to have nailed that one right on the head. Now I'm calling that his Rape-ion (which is very appropriate; it seems to be what Ursaring was in the first full battle... i.e. killing at least half of Ash's team single-handedly) is actually Reggie's... or rather, both Reggie's and Paul's. Yeah, there was a throwaway scene in the anime back in like DP081 or something that showed him trying to catch one or something, but it clearly got away and given how massively powerful Drapion is, considering it hasn't gotten the massive amount of screentime that Paul's Ursaring had to establish its badassery, I'm gonna go on a limb here and say Paul picked up on Drapion's training where Reggie left off after retiring. Given that that was quite a while ago, it would make sense why Drapion's so ridiculously powerful: it has many years of training from opposite ends of the spectrum as far as style is concerned. Plus if Paul was willing to sacrifice his Aggron and Gastrodon just to make this thing destroy Ash's team, there's obviously got to be a deeper connection here than what's being shown.
There've been nice signs of Paul mellowing out significantly in the League, but still standoffish enough to leave a bad taste in Ash & Co.'s mouths. It was amusing that Paul actually stared at Gastrodon's Pokeball after he recalled it and seemed to almost consider saying something to it (since Paul never thanks his Pokemon for their hard work after recalling them, much unlike everybody else). Not to mention Paul being enough of a bastard to blatantly copy Ash's signature Counter Shield technique. There have been a lot of references to the first full battle (such as Ash currently having the upper-hand in the beginning, though even better this time around), but plenty of unique twists to make this quite the epic-scale battle.
Now... given that they've never really done three consecutive episodes focused on one battle before, there's obviously going to be some backstory shown since Paul's on his way out and Team Rocket have been converted to audience members themselves, meaning there likely won't be any more of their shenanigans interrupting the awesome. They've showed Reggie quite a bit (too bad he's not in the audience; he's just quietly watching at home, the poor guy) and he seems to be exposition man here just like he was in DP128, so this is... definitely going to be a crazy couple of months.
I've promised to get Trifecta 15 finished by kitsune_prophet's birthday, which is one week from now. I'm presently 16k in and just about ready to start the actual battle with Brandon. So I'm gonna have to kick it into overdrive this coming week. All of this week I've been conking out for at least 3-4 hours every evening, sometimes more than that. Not sure why I've been so susceptible to sleep, but I'll try to resist that since that's the main thing that's holding the story back. Well, that and the fact that it's sorta hard to get much of it written down at work now. I also want to finish it by the end of next week because I'd like to get this chapter out before part 2 of the full battle, just so I won't have to backtrack midway in and change details at the last minute.
I've also been giving detailed backstories to all of battlestandby's Pokemon, both to make it an easy reference in RPing, plus it helps establish some more fic canon that I plan on adapting in the future. I've currently determined that Conway will have captured Lickilicky "off-screen" in Trifecta by the time I get back to his side of the story. Since he's going after Fantina, it would make sense for him to seek out a Normal-type. Shuckle will be a displayed capture, but probably downplayed. Dusknoir will be the capture + character development since this is a great opportunity to get Conway to conquer one of his greatest phobias.
In turn, with Paul, I've already established so far that Drapion was Reggie's and Gastrodon will just be one of those things he's had but hasn't used that often. Glad I'll be able to make a plot point out of Aggron, though! Totally didn't think Paul was ever going to use that thing again, but it'll be nice for Conway to teach Paul the value of patience by helping Paul's Lairon evolve (sensible, as Conway canonly owns an Aggron).
For Froslass, so far I've settled on one amusing plot: Froslass will be a capture, but more like a re-capture. I've explained her backstory on RP Paul's post already, but tl;dr: Paul caught her as a Snorunt ages ago and didn't know her gender. Snorunt are a bitch to evolve and Paul clearly got tired of doing it himself and left her at Reggie's, expecting to see a Glalie out of the deal someday. Instead, he ends up with a Froslass and he immediately wants to release it because A) He doesn't trust Ghost-types and B) its a gurl, hurhur. Reggie demands Paul to give it a chance, and Paul "promises" he'll do that... by taking her, going out some distance, and then releasing her. Lulz.
Froslass, I plan on her coming back to haunt Paul in the same chapter where Conway captures Dusknoir. That way it'll be a learning experience for both of them!
And then there's Ninjask... that's an easily-solved problem, especially since I'm just getting to Trifecta 15: Brandon gives Ninjask back, thinking Paul totally needs it more than he does after seeing his pitiful performance. This of course is a great offense to Paul and will serve well to make him despise his daddy all the more.
So... yeah. Lots of plotting to do! That timeline's definitely going to need a bit of a makeover since there's no way Paul and Conway will be doing all of their capturing after Chapter 25 (right at the end of Galactic Battles, no less). But that's going to wait for chapter 15 to actually finish; no doubt that's top priority right now.
I've considered doodling a farewell to DP and all its amazing greatness that I'll miss. Maybe. My drawing kinda blows ass. Does it make me weird that whenever High Touch! 2009 comes on my iPod, I'm imagining Paul and Conway doing the singing? And in the band version of Saikou Everyday! I'm imagining Paul's doing it rock concert style with Conway and Barry as backup singers.
... Yeah. I got problems all up in this, don't I?
Aaaaaaand it looks like Pokemon Diamond & Pearl will cap off at 191 episodes, just one short of the Advanced Generation series. It seems like they really are getting rid of Brock this time in the penultimate episode. I know they've teased him leaving at the end of a series only for him to come back a few episodes in to the next, but for all those times they never really had a major Brock-centric episode dedicated to said teasing. Usually it's just the last 5 minutes of an episode or so. Given that we've gone this long without seeing any trace of Brock in the Best Wishes series and it looks like Dento will be taking up the third slot in Ash's travel party is a pretty good sign that this'll be it for Brock for a while. Granted, he's been in over 600 episodes of the entire anime (so he pretty much only falls short to mainstays Ash/Pikachu/Team Rocket), but somehow I think I'll still miss him. I always liked Brock no matter how useless he seemed or how tired his flirting routine got. DP at least made that entertaining every time with Croagunk buttraping him for it. Plus they at least did a good job in making Brock relevant to the Team Galactic plot.
I really hope we get at least one more appearance with Conway, even if it's just post-League blahness or whatever. We've still got Barry on board until the end of the League at least, and we're in the midst of Paul's three-parter of a last hurrah (he'll probably appear in the Darkrai episode too); after the League though, I imagine we'll be saying goodbye to all three of those guys simultaneously. And naturally, they're the ones I'll miss the most.
The first part of the Paul battle was already OMGWTFAMAZING in several different ways. They definitely managed to put Dawn to good use (seeing as her story arc's been over with since like, late spring) because I was in utter shock that they gave Dawn and Paul so much one-on-one dialog. Not to mention the hilarity of Dawn walking in on and eavesdropping on Paul right as he managed a smile at his brother. Dawn, you're totally no better than Conway now. She's actually been pretty awesome during the League; getting creeped on multiple times by Conway, actually mocking the way Paul speaks to Barry, and now this. It's very nice, very fresh. I've always been okay with Dawn, but what dragged her down for me was her boring-ass journey, which I mostly blame on her rivals and the disproportioned screentime distributed with her Pokemon.
Still, this episode brought up a point that I thought was the case all along: Paul thinks Ash and Reggie are a lot alike, and that bothers him. So I'm glad to have nailed that one right on the head. Now I'm calling that his Rape-ion (which is very appropriate; it seems to be what Ursaring was in the first full battle... i.e. killing at least half of Ash's team single-handedly) is actually Reggie's... or rather, both Reggie's and Paul's. Yeah, there was a throwaway scene in the anime back in like DP081 or something that showed him trying to catch one or something, but it clearly got away and given how massively powerful Drapion is, considering it hasn't gotten the massive amount of screentime that Paul's Ursaring had to establish its badassery, I'm gonna go on a limb here and say Paul picked up on Drapion's training where Reggie left off after retiring. Given that that was quite a while ago, it would make sense why Drapion's so ridiculously powerful: it has many years of training from opposite ends of the spectrum as far as style is concerned. Plus if Paul was willing to sacrifice his Aggron and Gastrodon just to make this thing destroy Ash's team, there's obviously got to be a deeper connection here than what's being shown.
There've been nice signs of Paul mellowing out significantly in the League, but still standoffish enough to leave a bad taste in Ash & Co.'s mouths. It was amusing that Paul actually stared at Gastrodon's Pokeball after he recalled it and seemed to almost consider saying something to it (since Paul never thanks his Pokemon for their hard work after recalling them, much unlike everybody else). Not to mention Paul being enough of a bastard to blatantly copy Ash's signature Counter Shield technique. There have been a lot of references to the first full battle (such as Ash currently having the upper-hand in the beginning, though even better this time around), but plenty of unique twists to make this quite the epic-scale battle.
Now... given that they've never really done three consecutive episodes focused on one battle before, there's obviously going to be some backstory shown since Paul's on his way out and Team Rocket have been converted to audience members themselves, meaning there likely won't be any more of their shenanigans interrupting the awesome. They've showed Reggie quite a bit (too bad he's not in the audience; he's just quietly watching at home, the poor guy) and he seems to be exposition man here just like he was in DP128, so this is... definitely going to be a crazy couple of months.
I've promised to get Trifecta 15 finished by kitsune_prophet's birthday, which is one week from now. I'm presently 16k in and just about ready to start the actual battle with Brandon. So I'm gonna have to kick it into overdrive this coming week. All of this week I've been conking out for at least 3-4 hours every evening, sometimes more than that. Not sure why I've been so susceptible to sleep, but I'll try to resist that since that's the main thing that's holding the story back. Well, that and the fact that it's sorta hard to get much of it written down at work now. I also want to finish it by the end of next week because I'd like to get this chapter out before part 2 of the full battle, just so I won't have to backtrack midway in and change details at the last minute.
I've also been giving detailed backstories to all of battlestandby's Pokemon, both to make it an easy reference in RPing, plus it helps establish some more fic canon that I plan on adapting in the future. I've currently determined that Conway will have captured Lickilicky "off-screen" in Trifecta by the time I get back to his side of the story. Since he's going after Fantina, it would make sense for him to seek out a Normal-type. Shuckle will be a displayed capture, but probably downplayed. Dusknoir will be the capture + character development since this is a great opportunity to get Conway to conquer one of his greatest phobias.
In turn, with Paul, I've already established so far that Drapion was Reggie's and Gastrodon will just be one of those things he's had but hasn't used that often. Glad I'll be able to make a plot point out of Aggron, though! Totally didn't think Paul was ever going to use that thing again, but it'll be nice for Conway to teach Paul the value of patience by helping Paul's Lairon evolve (sensible, as Conway canonly owns an Aggron).
For Froslass, so far I've settled on one amusing plot: Froslass will be a capture, but more like a re-capture. I've explained her backstory on RP Paul's post already, but tl;dr: Paul caught her as a Snorunt ages ago and didn't know her gender. Snorunt are a bitch to evolve and Paul clearly got tired of doing it himself and left her at Reggie's, expecting to see a Glalie out of the deal someday. Instead, he ends up with a Froslass and he immediately wants to release it because A) He doesn't trust Ghost-types and B) its a gurl, hurhur. Reggie demands Paul to give it a chance, and Paul "promises" he'll do that... by taking her, going out some distance, and then releasing her. Lulz.
Froslass, I plan on her coming back to haunt Paul in the same chapter where Conway captures Dusknoir. That way it'll be a learning experience for both of them!
And then there's Ninjask... that's an easily-solved problem, especially since I'm just getting to Trifecta 15: Brandon gives Ninjask back, thinking Paul totally needs it more than he does after seeing his pitiful performance. This of course is a great offense to Paul and will serve well to make him despise his daddy all the more.
So... yeah. Lots of plotting to do! That timeline's definitely going to need a bit of a makeover since there's no way Paul and Conway will be doing all of their capturing after Chapter 25 (right at the end of Galactic Battles, no less). But that's going to wait for chapter 15 to actually finish; no doubt that's top priority right now.
I've considered doodling a farewell to DP and all its amazing greatness that I'll miss. Maybe. My drawing kinda blows ass. Does it make me weird that whenever High Touch! 2009 comes on my iPod, I'm imagining Paul and Conway doing the singing? And in the band version of Saikou Everyday! I'm imagining Paul's doing it rock concert style with Conway and Barry as backup singers.
... Yeah. I got problems all up in this, don't I?