Crystal VS Kotone

'Nother Monday, 'nother update for the blog. This week let's take a look at the debate of Crystal VS Kotone.

Let me preface this by saying I'm not bashing one side or the other just because I'm not on it; merely stating observations.

There are many sides to this argument. First and foremost you have the nostalgia griefers or Crystal Lovers, who hate Kotone with a fiery, burning passion because she took Crystal's place. This was the boat lots of people were in (myself included >>; ) when Kotone's art was first revealed. Hate art started pouring out of dA and everywhere else like it was running water or something. People screamed, people cried, but above all, people complained. As time wore on though, people either got over it, learned to accept Kotone, or moved on entirely. These are the people who are girls but played as a boy in HGSS just so they wouldn't have to play as Lyra. They're very bitter about the fact that Crystal was overlooked for the remake and take their rage out on her replacement, Kotone/Lyra.

When there is one side of the spectrum, there is always the opposite, thus giving birth to the Kotone Lovers. Unlike the nostalgia-griefing Crystal lovers, the Kotone Lovers are very pro-Kotone's existence. They usually dislike Crystal in the same way Crystal Lovers hate Kotone. Some may even make arguments that Crystal and Kotone are the same person and that no one should be fighting at all since that's the case. Or perhaps they make argument that since Crystal wasn't used in the remake, she doesn't exist in the game's cannon. Some people jumped into this boat just to counter the Crystal Lovers, who were whining incessantly about Crystal's absence. I've noticed that a lot of people who prefer Kotone over Crystal are younger and most likely didn't play Crystal in the first place, resulting in them not having as strong an attachment to her. Just a general observation though, and it doesn't apply to everyone. I've also noticed fanboys of Kotone tend to fall into this group's ideologies...>>;;

If there's a pro side and an anti side, that can only mean there's also a Neutral Party. These people, as the name denotes, love both characters equally and are neutral on the argument of who is better. They might be sad that Crystal wasn't included in the remake, but they have no qualms with playing as Lyra in the game. Many Crystal Lovers eventually migrated into this group as time wore on and they grew more accustomed to Kotone, myself included. Maybe it was a particularly moving piece of fanart, a fanfiction, something; something caused them to change their mind about the character, and they grew to love or at the very least tolerate the other. Neutral Party people may also believe that griefing amongst the antis and the pros is silly, and that there's really no need to fight about it. Neutrals may also believe the "They're the same person" argument.

You can also, of course, say that there are some that are in the Hate Them Both group, I guess. XD Haven't come across any.

For me personally, as I stated, I'm neutral about them. I love Crystal to pieces, but I've grown to love Kotone as well, mostly through Soul Silver Shipping. Loving the ship helped me to love the character, and in that way I feel I have grown as a gamer. XD I can say that I don't think they're the same person, though. P:

Again, I'm not trying to start a debate with this; was just stating some observations. Not hostile. o_o;

As always, feel free to comment, discuss, whathaveyou, and I'll see you all next week.

Chapter 8 and now on dA

It's almost Monday here, so I figured I'd go ahead and do this week's blog update. ^_^

First of all, you can now find Follow Me on deviantArt. ^__^ I'll be updating simultaneously on there and FF.net once I get dA completely caught up to FF.net.

Secondly, some backtracking to discuss Chapter 8.

Several people made comment about how harsh Lugia was in that chapter. Here are my thoughts:

Silver and Soul kind of invaded his sanctuary, where he'd been peacefully resting/enjoying his days. You could say that maybe they woke him up, and he was grouchy, I guess. XD

An artist by the name of MangoRamune did a piece called "Below the Whirl Islands" (which you can view here) that describes pretty much how I envisioned Lugia to be. I can't imagine he'd be too pleased to see you, having been rudely disturbed from his slumber.

I think the second movie of the anime (and most of the movies in general) perpetuate this image that Lugia/legendaries are fluffy nice guys who work together with humans and don't mind being shoved into balls to do your bidding. I don't agree with this mantra. I guess you could say I modeled Lugia after Mewtwo in movie 1 a bit; he knows he's more powerful and cannot be controlled by men and does not enjoy taking orders from them. Silver kind of miffed Lugia by being so demanding, and as such, he and Soul were punished by being banished, which really, is a form of leniency on Lugia's part, as had he really wanted to, he could have just killed them instead. So maybe he's not so evil after all.

That's it for this week, as always, thanks for reading, and if there's a certain subject you'd like to hear about, drop me a comment. Laters.

Inspiration and Titles

I think it's pretty obvious where the inspiration for Follow Me came from: the special Celebi event. Reading about it and seeing the event on YouTube, I was so horrendously fascinated with it. It got me thinking, though; what would happen after that? Would she tell him about it? How would he react? Would Silver want to try and find his father? These questions were the basis of Follow Me's plot.

I was just starting to like the SS Ship at the time, and I was thinking about writing a fanfiction. I had two options: one was the idea that fleshed out into Follow Me, and the other was a songfic (which I may just post eventually, if I don't turn it into a doujinshi instead, provided I have the patience to tackle such an artistic endeavor with my lack of artistic ability). I (obviously) went with the follow-up to the Celebi event plan, and with ideas pouring into my brain, I started writing.

I'm terrible with titles. Or at least I have been as of late. D: I didn't used to be; I used to pride myself on coming up with clever, witty titles for stories and chapters. However, I must have misplaced this ability, because it's all but left me. Chapter One of Follow Me came and went without so much as a Story Title, much less a Chapter Title. Looking over the completed chapter, I scratched my head and wrote, "Return" at the top of the page, referencing Soul's return to Johto. Continuing on, I wrote Chapter Two and arrived at the same issue. Thinking for a moment, a thought occurred to me: maybe I could name everything after Pokemon moves...?

As someone has already pointed out in a review, all of Follow Me's Chapter Titles (and the story's name itself) are Pokemon Moves (as well as Abilities, which I added for some extra range). I rigged up a table in GoogleDocs and hand typed the entire list; now whenever a new Chapter is written, I examine that list, looking for potential candidates. I narrow it down to two or three, then from those few I pick the final title. Chapter Five: Nightmare, by the way, was almost called "Bad Dreams," but I decided to save the plural form for another chapter, possibly one where both Soul and Silver are having nightmares. I wonder now if that was a bad idea, since so many people seemed confused about the fact that Chapter Five "didn't happen." :x

The story title, "Follow Me" is of course from the list of Pokemon Moves. The meaning of it has yet to surface, but it will, eventually, I promise. c:

Anyhoo, that's it for this update. See you guys next week. Feel free to drop a comment if there's something you'd like to hear me talk about; if not, I'll just keep rambling about things that occur to me. Cheers!

Updates--Now on Mondays!

A very big sorry to those who have been following this lately to notice no updates; been a bit busy. ^^;;

As the title says, though, I'm going to start updating this blog weekly, every Monday. This post doesn't count as this week's update, though, so stick around (even though I'm posting this update on a Tuesday, lulz. All further updates will be on Mondays, though).