Sarasvati - Of Art and Knowledge

Wow, does this ever take me back!

Old Pokemon rumours, from the days before even the original incarnations of Gold and Silver came out in Japan. I'm having a bit of a nostalgia trip here, remembering all of these things!

Before GS came out in Japan (so that would have been before late 1999), I actually had a site of my own, on which I kept track of the latest GS news, or at least as much as I could. Most of what I had was just a rehashed version of what was appearing on every other rumour and news site, complete with the same old screenshots. I remember eagerly typing up a paragraph about the news that most, if not all, Pokemon would have male and female genders, and the rumours said that some would have different sprites and movesets according to gender. I speculated that perhaps the new Pokedex would have the ability to track Pokemon by gender, considering they'd be so different.

I also remember hearing that some pokemon would be nocturnal or diurnal only. No news other than that at the time, and so I didn't think so much that it referred only to the times they could be caught, but speculated that perhaps at night, diurnal Pokemon would have the Sleep status ailment, and vice versa, making players have to either wake them up for each battle or form different parties depending on the time of the day in which they were playing.

Considering that half the stuff that was reported at the time turned out to be inaccurate in the final version of the game (rumours of the Skateboard item come to mind), I turned out to be wrong on a lot of counts. But that didn't stop the fun of keeping up to date with the news, and making my speculations when and where I could.

One of my more interesting assumptions was that Ho-oh (known at the time only by its Japanese name of Houou) would be an evolution of Hoothoot (known then as Hoohoo). I based this on the fact that Pokemon of the same evolutionary line tended to have similarities in their naming structure, and that it would be interesting for such a powerful Pokemon to evolve from something that looked comically useless. Much like Gyarados evolving from Magikarp. Dead wrong, of course, but at least my theories were based on evidence rather than the sheer amount of people who believed all the Pikablu rumours.

That's what really made me remember all this stuff. Pikablu was the fan-name for what later came to be known as Marril, and seemed to be based on little other than a general colour scheme and the fact that the initial artwork looked vaguely mouse-like. People assumed, therefore, that it must be related to Pikachu, and named it accordingly.

That name always bugged the hell out of me. I'm the kind of person who loves game rumours, and loves to try them out (I can't count the number of hours spent playing Final Fantasy VII to uncover the truth behind every rumour I could find, including one about a wooden Chocobo and Yuffie's father's underwear -- I really wish I was joking), but I wouldn't instantly believe every rumour that came my way. I'd try to look at it as objectively as I could, and objectively, aside from the fact that the early Marril art looked mouse-like, I could see no other relation to Pikachu.

I can remember excitedly telling a Pokemon-obsessed friend about the official announcement of Marril's name. He looked baffled and asked, "Why didn't they just call it Pikablu?" I tried calmly and patiently to explain to him for the umpteenth time that it had nothing to do with Pikachu, so why would they name it so?

It should be remembered, of course, that this person was not the brightest. He insisted that he knew more about the games than I did because he'd played them longer, but often made statements about them that were incorrect. (Type matchups, for example, or natural versus TM-based moves.)

Of course, Pikachu was famous thanks to the anime, and everything Pokemon was everything Pikachu. When Honooguma's artwork was released (what most believe to be early concept art for Cyndaquil), people saw small round black eyes and went, "Gasp! Another Pikachu form!" And I facepalmed.

It may be snobbish of me, but I really disliked how people would grasp at straws like that instead of trying to actually find out things. I recall seeing fanart in one of the Pokemon-related Nintendo magazines of, among others, Marril and Snubbull. Their English names hadn't been released at the time, so of course Marril was listed not a Mariru but Pikablu. And rather than be listed as Buru, Snubbull was... Dogasu. Which, if I recall, was actually the Japanese name of Koffing. But the artist had seen a Pokemon that looked like a dog, heard a a Japanese Pokemon name that had the letters d-o-g in it, and put the two together.

It took all of 30 seconds to find out online that Buru's name was not, in fact, Dogasu, but why let research get in the way of assumptions?

But I suppose that's how a lot of rumours get started. One person makes an assumption, then other people take it seriously without doing research of their own. Me, I liked doing the research. I liked to know that what I knew was true, or at least as close to being true as people could figure out at the time.

I don't stay on top of gaming news as much as I used to. And in some ways, the widespread use of the Internet and increased availability of information has kind of taken the fun out of it for me. I used to love waiting for news sites to update with teaser info, sometimes involving stuff that wouldn't make it to the release version, and listening to all the rumours that I can put to the test later. But rumour mills involving video games seem to have died down a lot these days, and often the news sites have so much information that it's not so much of a teaser anymore. Leaked versions get out and the first thing people do now is hack the code to find out all the items, all the Pokemon, telling you exactly what's there and what to expect and when. Good in some ways, but it takes the thrill out of it for me.

Finally redownloaded, installed, and started playing MegaTen Online once more. Haven't even done much yet, but it's just as fun as it was in beta, and now it's running on a better computer so that I can actually enjoy it without as much lag.

Right now I'm just playing with Rei, under the character name of SageWilliams, so if anybody sees that character, feel free to say hi. I'll probably be creating a solo character at some point, too, so that I can play when Rei's elsewhere without feeling guilty about being too many levels above him. Sometimes we create characters in games specifically to play together, so I often create a secondary for when I want to solo later.

Need to get money so that I can get a paid account on DW again. I like having individual icons for the games I'm playing, and so far my "Persona Phone" icon is the closest I have to something for MegaTen Online. Just need to get a job and all will be sorted out.

Which reminds me, I interviewed for a company I will call Company X, and once again didn't get the job. I have the sneaking suspicion that they didn't hire me this time because they held my previous interview, one I had 8 months ago, against me, which I think is a load of bullcrap. I'll be contacting the temp agency tomorrow to find out if they gave a reason, and if it's something pathetic like that, I'm going to call them on it and demand that they not hold the past against me like that, especially when their own company policies dictate that I'm supposed to get a new chance to be hired by them after 6 months. If they're just going to hold the previous interview against me, then what's the point in interviewing me a second time at all?

But time will tell what comes of that. As much as I'd want to work for them because they pay well and offer good benefits and stability, they demand a lot of applicants that they don't demand of their actual employees, are notoriously strict, and yes, have been known to not hire people because they wear an article of clothing that's less than professional. (By which I mean, if I show up in sneakers, apologize for wearing sneakers but explain that I'm broke and they're the only things I actually own to wear on my feet, and the sneakers are neat and clean... they won't hire me because I had the audacity to wear sneakers to an interview.)

I also suspect that they may not have hired me because it's been so long since I last had a job. Makes me wonder how people who take time off for sickness or family ever get new jobs. I swear, next time somebody asks me why I haven't worked since last September, I'm going to lie through my teeth and tell them that I was recovering from illness. At least that way they might not get the idea that the reason I haven't worked much since then is because I'm unemployable.

The longer I go without a job, the harder it is to get a job. It's a piss-off!

Okay, enough ranting. Back to playing MegaTen Online!

It's a rather grey and unpleasant-looking day today, but I seem to still be running on the enjoyment of yesterday, in spite of the weather and lingering feelings from an uncomfortable dream last night.

I did a lot of walking yesterday, so much that my body still aches today. That just goes to show how out of shape I am. Oh sure, I may have been going for half-hour to 45-minute walks just about every day for the past two months, but keeping my shopaholic mother company at the mall for three hours is a tiring experience, moreso than I remembered. My feet, legs, and torso ache, and for so reason my forearms ache, though I didn't carrying anything larger than a rather light plastic bag.

But I am glad I went out. More government money appeared in my bank account, likely from a GST credit from three years ago, so I picked myself up some essentials and non-essentials. An unlimited bus card for this month, which will be good if I get a job and even good if I don't, since it will make grocery shopping easier and will allow me to go out even if the weather's terrible. There's a large chance that any new job I get will be in a part of the city that I can't easily walk to, and since I have another interview next week in the same area that my interview last week was in, it's probably going to be cheaper in the long run to have bought the unlimited card.

A new art store opened up at the mall, and so I bought Rei and early birthday gift in the form of two cougar photographs, one of them framed. There are a lot of interesting things there, some really beautiful prints and paintings, but what caught my eye was the little fibre arts section that contained things like bottle cozies that had been made from the sleeves of felted recycled sweaters. Selling for prices that I could potentially make good money on myself, since such things are easy to make, and it still leaves the front and back of the sweater intact for other projects. They sold crocheted bookmarks, some of which were far too thick to be used effectively, for $1 each, but they were so simple that a person could churn out 10 of them in an hour with no problem at all. That store makes me think once again that I should make a few wall hangings and see if they'll help me sell them. Or perhaps I could join in the recycling fad and sell simple things like bookmarks and wrist bands. It wouldn't take much effort on my part, and I'm the thrifty/crafty sort who gets most of my yarn from recycled sweaters anyway.

Also bought the latest issue of A Needle Pulling Thread, which has a few interesting projects to try. I was hoping I'd be able to find the latest issue of Renaissance too, but it seems that even the largest bookstore in the city no longer carries it. I'm not too surprised, since I was probably one of maybe three people in the city who bought the magazine, and even I'd stopped for a while due to a lack of money. They probably figured it just wasn't worth it anymore. Hopefully I'll be able to get a subscription to the magazine when I start getting regular paycheques again.

Seeing people on my Reading list talking about SMT: Strange Journey made me envious, since I love the MegaTen series. That extra money in my bank account allowed me just enough to be able to buy it, and I started playing it last night. Aside from silly-looking helmets, the game thus far is a lot of fun, the plot as interesting as all MegaTen games tend to be, and plenty of fun demons to recruit. I like the fact that I can now fuse them without having to leave the area, which makes things a lot easier, though it eliminates a little bit of level-building because I don't have to backtrack as much to visit some special place where I can fuse demons. Frankly, I like level-building, and this has proven to be a good thing in MegaTen games, since if I don't level-build I seem to get ass-raped by demons pretty regularly.

I also finished watching Chobits before going out. As interesting as that show was, it could have been done better. There was quite a lot of filler, which made it rather boring at times and a chore to wait through. I kept hoping with each new episode that there'd be something exciting happening now, instead of just another, "Chii learns something new through daily life stuff" episode. Out of 27 episodes, 3 of them were recap episodes, including the finale, which showed us scenes that we'd already watched two episodes previous. While I find the concept interesting, and some of the characters intruiging, I found myself thinking that the show could have been reduced in length by half, and if they'd cut out the filler and remove the flashback episodes, it would have been much more compelling, and wouldn't have dragged so much.

Of course, complaining that a show is full of filler becomes ironic when you consider that I started watching Sailor Moon immediately after. I found subtitled episodes, which is good, and it's an old favourite that I never did get to see all of, and it will keep me busy for a while, so long as I'm not too embroiled in Strange Journey. Plenty of filler, yes, but it holds nostalgia for me. This show actually helped me get my first girlfriend. (How many nerds can say that?) I became somewhat obsessed with Haruka, and so changed my ICQ name to Michiru. Out of the blue one day, somebody named Haruka sent me a message, saying we must have something in common. From there we started talking, and ended up getting together. It didn't last, but it was certainly fun while it lasted, and she'll always have a place in my heart, but I'm forever amused by the fact that Sailor Moon, of all things, helped me get a date!

If anybody's curious, I fully expect to be hanging around on Digimon Battle for the next while, as I suspect this game will consume my soul with a nice slice of lemon. If you're on the Antyla server and see Osamu running around (looking remarkably like Henry Wong/Li Jianliang -- hush, he's in disguise), feel free to say hi.

Productivity? What is this strange concept of which you speak?

[Edit] - Ended the day with both a Renamon and a Gabumon, and the latter was a piece of luck, since the capture rate in that game is around 0.1%, from what I hear. Very much want Nyaromon and Tokomon, and I'll probably spend far too many hours trying to get them.

As much as I'm enjoying watching Digimon Adventure 02, I'm already looking forward to getting all the way to Digimon Frontier so that I can see more of Lucemon. I've seen him before in one of the video games, but all I really got to see was him being defeated in battle fairly quickly, and I didn't get to learn much about him.

I've always had an interest in spiritual balance, and see Lucifer as the necessary dark to balance the light in sects of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic religions that declare him to be the adversary of God. Reading a brief description of Lucemon's Chaos Mode, I'm intruiged by the dual nature of his existance, at one both loving and hating, nurturing and destroying.

I can see him having great interest in the events that Kain and Alphamon started in Digimon World DS, especially since Lucemon represents that sin of pride. Alphamon's manipulation of Kain in order to further manipulate Digimon to declare themselves wholly self-sufficient and stronger than Digimon with Tamers seems like it would fall under that sphere of influence, as to declare such a thing would be very prideful. There's also an aspect of contradiction in there; for Alphamon to carry out his plan to remove the necessity of humans from the Digital World, he needed a human to act on his behalf.

I'll have to go through the Seven Demon Lords quest in Digimon World DS again, to see if there are any more hints as to Lucemon's personality and interests demonstrated, or whether it was mostly just a bragging-rights quest. I can see this being added to the Kain/Yuji fic that will never be read, either way. (I doubt anybody will read it because both are characters in a game that even few Digimon fans probably played, and Yuji's a fairly minor character anyway. But they are my OTP, so I can't abandon them.)

Things like this are why I don't understand why the Digimon fandom is so often passed off as a forgettable kiddy show. It holds an enormous amount of potential, has intelligence, darkness, and mindfucks all over the place, and if it were presented only slightly differently (with Chosen Children in their early to mid teens, maybe, and few overreactions and filler episodes, and perhaps with a more mature art style), it would have gained a greater following. Though that may sound like a lot to change, bear in mind that those are superficial changes. The plot could stay the same. Only variations in the presentation of the plot would be different.

But there's no shame in liking such a show anyway. I look at it and see more than others, and have a greater interest in the darker aspects than in character pairings, which seem to be the driving force behind most fans of any show, movie, or book.

I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that I can get the new job I applied for last week. If so, there's a very real chance that I can go back to university and, unlike last time I was there, can actually work toward a goal that I have clearly in mind, instead of just taking classes at random and hoping I get inspired. Credit where credit is due, though, since it was in my first Ancient Greek language class that I fully discovered my love of and talent for languages, so going to university when I didn't wasn't a complete waste of time and money.

I feel the urge to start studying now, though. Even though I don't know what courses I'll take, or even if I'll be lucky enough to get the job that will allow me to go back, I want to get ahead as soon as possible. At best I'll be able to coast through a few classes and perhaps bring up some interesting discussion, and at worst I'll have filled my hours with something productive and educations. It seems like a clear win-win situation.

I've been switching back and forth between playing Pokemon Soul Silver and Ragnarok DS. More Pokemon than Ragnarok lately, mostly because the quests in Ragnarok are repetitive and I can only stand so much of it at a time. It's quite different from the online game, which is what I was hoping for when I bought it. It's still enjoyable, though, and I should put Pokemon down for a day and advance Ragnarok's plot a little.

I've also been catching up on some old anime that hasn't been popular for the better part of a decade by now. I would have finished watching Love Hina today, if the final episode hadn't decided not to play. Rather than wrestle with it or find it on an anime streaming site, I just switched to Seirei no Moribito, which looks quite interesting. I can't see it becoming one of my favourites, but I think I'll enjoy watching it, as the plot looks intruiging and the animation is done quite well.