ZEL

nope, not meant to be like that.
the forum update went down in typical fashion, which is to say someone please save ame's leftover sanity

Don't be so gloom, Az. pix~ C-can you brush our ribbons instead? pixpix?

i-i'm sorry, d-do you know where my trainer is, piiiix? pixpix? pixpix? pixpix?~

"See, she uh, she's so tough and strong she doesn't need to protect her vital organs. Only weak women need a functioning suit of armor! It's empowerment!" /s

@Candy Makes you wonder which one wrote it, eh? /shot

I do wanna add a disclaimer in hindsight tho that I was purely talking about the standard "I don't think this will work" cases, and was not covering shit like cheating & abuse. Nobody has to accept being treated like that and that stuff's not something anyone should feel a need to get used to.
Those people are absolutely excluded from my "this is how dating works" statement.

Hey, I don't know how appropriate it's gonna be for me as sort of a stranger to comment on your pretty emotional status post, but in the event that I may, I'd like to address some things, and I hope I don't accidentally sound mean, because I don't intend to.

" I'm a stepping stone for the "hero" of the love stories I happen to wander into. Just an obstacle that will never win, no matter what. "
I can see where this kind of feeling comes from, especially from what I recall about what happened the last time.

And I've been both on the receiving and the giving end of the "breaking up to be with someone else" scenario, so trust me, I'm not a stranger to the feeling.
But, well... The unfortunate fact is that for almost all of us except a very lucky few, having a love life involves heartbreak and disappointment of varying degrees. It's incredibly unlikely for anyone to stay happily with their first love forever, so most of us will eventually have to go through breakups.

It both does and doesn't get better. It sucks to start dating someone only for the whole thing to end up not working out, but unfortunately there isn't really a way to circumvent this part. You won't find out if you're fully compatible unless you give dating a try, and sometimes the answer is ultimately 'no'.

And sometimes this doesn't become clear until someone else has entered the picture and made a comparison possible.

But that doesn't make you a stepping stone. It doesn't mean you were an obstacle or that your previous partners intended to hurt and abandon you all along.

It's simply how dating works. You try it out, and sometimes it doesn't succeed.

It also doesn't mean that you weren't good enough.
"Not good enough" is, in my opinion, a really toxic mindset to have. It completely ignores that there isn't a standard for what's good, and that every person's ideals of a partner are different.
Breaking up doesn't have to mean "not good" - it usually simply meant "not right".

Thinking it's about your value as a partner is like throwing out a puzzle piece because it doesn't fit into the puzzle you're working on, completely ignoring that it belongs to a different puzzle altogether. It's not that it's a useless piece, it just didn't fit into that specific puzzle, and if you just keep trying it out on all your puzzles, you'll eventually find the one in which it fits.

You're good enough. For the right person. (Or rather, people. Assuming there is only one possible match is a pretty pessimistic approach.)
 

A breakup, in its essence, isn't a mean-spirited thing. Sure, they can be nasty. Like, say, if you catch a partner cheating.

But at its core, a breakup is no more and no less than the honest expression that you believe it's better, in the long run, if you go separate ways. It's the admission that you think the relationship isn't making either of you as happy and fulfilled as you can and deserve to be. It's an act of necessary honesty.

Accepting this, and growing out of treating breakups like an act of cruelty, a personal insult, is an important step towards a more successful love life.

I'm not trying to diminish how much breaking up can hurt. But it's a fact of life that we can't always succeed at things first try. You're neither the first nor the last person to who this happened.

And personally, I'd also like to say that too much importance is often placed on the ideal of the true love for life, and not enough importance is placed on enjoying the life you are currently living.

Do not devalue relationships because they did not last. Were you not happy during that time? Are you going to stop yourself from any enjoyment out of fear that it isn't going to last forever?

You're gonna miss out on a whole lot of life if you only ever think in "forever or never" terms.

I do hope you will find your match some day, whatever this ultimately means for you.

Why, hello there!
Fern's actually my next favourite character after my namesakes, so hey, we might be able to get this Fern Fanclub Fernclub started :]

Also wym Ika, last time someone made a poll that got 100+ participants she was the most liked gym leader and the only characters who got more votes than her were Taka and Cain

Her popularity picked up a lot with E17

Yeah that's what I mean with how it could be complicated with the surface being so small - everything would end up covered very fast haha.

If you're currently not equipped to deal with live plants you could always look into silk plants? The main purpose would be to make sure the fish has plenty of cover (they ideally should have the ability to hide from your sight completely).

Real plants come with their own set of advantages, but as far as creating a safe-feeling environment goes, silks do the trick^^ (Heard it's best to stay clear of the unnaturally colourful ones, though. And make sure they're aquarium-safe, no sharp edges etc that the fish could hurt itself on.)

Hope I'm not being annoying about this or anything, aha. Just throwing in suggestions while you're upgrading your fishy's home~

Betta fish much enjoy some plants for hiding in and under, as their natural habitat features mostly murky waters with a lot of vegetation, so have you thought about adding some yet? ^^ An unplanted aquarium, especially if it is "open" to all sides like this, can make the fish feel more unsafe if they don't feel like they have enough hiding space, which results in more stress (which may even lead to visible changes in their colours, such as so-called stress stripes).

They also like floaty plants that cast shadows into the water, but that could be more tricky with such a small surface area, so manipulating the tank surroundings instead may work as well. (Personally I'd have rather suggested a 5+ gallon talk with more width, though.)

Bettas are pretty cute, what type do you have?~

I mean, in a ton of animal species the males are a lot showier than the females. Think peacocks, lions, elephant seals... So male Meganium doesn't seem weird, all things considered.

Personally I do agree that a 50/50 ratio for starter genders would be nicer, but mostly so that it's easier to get whichever gender you want, not so much because of how the Pokémon look.
 

As someone who is neither male or female, I actually find it kind of nice when 'mons don't fit into traditional gender roles  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It's cute when my Pokémon have something in common with me.

They're Pokémon. They're too busy being awesome and beating the hell outta each other to care about human gender roles :]

That's awesome! Glad to hear this went well for you; best wishes for any similar future endeavors as well.

Who said I didn't notice it
You literally pointed it out LOL

Klinklang is perfect and people who hate it will just have to live a life filled with the misery of never seeing the light :]

...Jokes aside - honestly, I always thought its design is badass. It also just so happens that Klink is found in my favourite area in Unova. Chargestone Cave is beautiful, when I played BW for the first time I was like woah.
And then in BW2 we find out that Colress uses one (along with Magnezone and Metang, NICE) and he's p much my fave Gen V character so there's that, too~

I love using Klinklang on my team in any game - but in Reborn it's straight up godly, considering the amount of times you fight on the factory and short-circuit fields. Setting up on those is just ridiculous.

It doesn't have the largest and most diverse movepool, but really, half the time you just spam shift gear + gear grind anyway.
Slap magnet rise on it if you don't feel like losing your set up to EQ, and between Wild Charge, Return and T-Wave you've got a nice fourth choice.

Since I'm not into competitive, tf would I care abt anything else~

But like, real talk: if someone isn't fond of the design, who am I to judge, haha. There's plenty of designs I don't like that enjoy a lot of popularity. Off the top of my head, Blaziken is a prime example. Or any of the Hoenn legends, really.
There's a Pokémon for everyone's tastes, I just think it's silly when people feel the need to go the "it's so unimaginative" / "it's just an object" / "[insert rant abt the decline of pokemon designs in newer gens here]" route.
Like, bruh. Just say "I think it's ugly" and move on, I'm not expecting your dislike to be That Deep and ya don't have to pretend it is.

So what about that time you said you might make E16's available for the brave theme too Though tbh, the current banner is awesome. The art is so damn cool hhhhh