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kjorteoLast time: I finally learned how to catch Pokemon (thanks, I never knew) and acquired a Hoothoot named Scout for "you'll see why next time" reasons.
There are a lot of features this game prominently promotes in-game. Ethan and his Marill run around and play hide-and-seek and tag and whatever else--and come across as suspiciously shippable--just so that the game has an excuse to talk to you about how your lead Pokemon follows you around like that. NPCs have lines like "I wanted to take a rest, so I'm saving my game." However, there is one feature this game has that it doesn't promote at all, one that it just quietly unlocks without drawing attention to it. You need to have at least one Pokemon in PC storage, and then it will usable from the title menu (not even in-game once you load your save!)
HeartGold and SoulSilver shipped with a little device called the Pokewalker, a Pokeball-shaped step counter that connected to HG/SS proper. With it, you could beam one of your Pokemon from PC storage into the Pokewalker, gather points (or "Watts") by going on a real-life walk with your chosen Pokemon, and spend those Watts hunting down items and even more Pokemon that live in whatever specific Pokewalker course you chose when initiating the transfer. All in all, it's a neat gimmick, a sort of precursor prototype to the "Please go outside" mindset that would eventually become Pokemon Go. Of course, almost ten years later, no one still has their pack-in feelies for this game anymore, and it's probably just as well that no one in-game mentions this feature because no one would actually use it anyway.
Just kidding.
Hi, my fursona is quite literally a packrat. I'm that person who will acquire a board game and save everying even down to the empty trash cardboard sheets from which you punch out all the tiles. And Silver meant so much to me growing up that of course I preordered the special collector's edition of SoulSilver when it was first announced, and it's been sitting here box-and-all on my shelf ever since.
Of course I still have my Pokewalker. And of course it's still pristine and perfectly functional. It needed a new battery, obviously, but they take standard CR2032s and the battery compartment is specifically designed for easy access and replacement. There are even pack-in instructions on how to change the battery if you somehow can't figure out "unscrew the back plate, take old battery out, put new battery in, screw the back plate back on" and of course I still have those too.
I was briefly concerned over whether the connection would still work, since I'm playing this on a New 3DS XL instead of a DS and because DS-era Nintendo WFC has been shut down for years. Fortunately, the Pokewalker connects to HG/SS via a direct infrared beam aimed at the physical DS cart itself (!!!) so after all these years, the only thing even slightly wonky about all this is that the animation it plays while it's beaming your Pokemon to and from the Pokewalker is now wrong. (The slot to insert DS carts is in a different location on the New 3DS XL versus the DS. It's assuming you're still holding the Pokewalker behind the DS/above the top screen to point it at the cart, and so it plays a cute little animation of the Pokemon beaming from the bottom screen up to a picture of the Pokewalker on the top. However, at this point, I'm actually holding the Pokewalker in front of the DS/below the bottom screen. Wait Scout come back you're beaming the wrong waaaayyyyyy)
Now all that's left is the actual walking, which... actually, that's not really a problem for me, either. I lead a very walking-centric lifestyle. I don't have a car and I take the bus to and from work, despite the nearest bus stop being about a 20-30 minute walk from home. I like to go on walks in the morning on weekends as well, because I am generally concerned about being sedentary. (Did you know that clotting is a possible side effect of HRT? I have my Fitbit pester me to get up and get at least 250 steps per hour because deep vein thrombosis is not how I want to go.) In short, I am very easily good for at least 10,000 steps a day. I've already been gameifying that by getting into Pokemon Go, not because Pokemon Go by itself is the greatest game ever made, but because if I'm doing all that walking anyway then I may as well at least get points toward fish evolution for it.
So, to answer all the "You'll see why next time" mysteries from the last entry:
1) The stopping point I wanted to reach last night was the ability to catch Pokemon.
2) I wanted to have a Pokemon in PC storage to unlock the Pokewalker functionality.
3) I wanted to have all that done last night so that I could beam Scout to the Pokewalker this morning, so that I could take him with me on my morning walk.
4) His name is a dumb pun because he'll be recruiting all the cool Pokemon I find inside the Pokewalker, and he's a bird. He's a natural talon scout, you see.
At this point, I can now break this game's already non-existent difficulty curve wide open just by having the Pokewalker attached as I go about my normal day. In fact, it's such a potent tool that it was actually part of my undoing last time, and something I have to be careful about this time. I have far more time to clip a step counter to my belt and go to work and stuff than I do to sit down and play a DS game. You're seeing an early blast of entries right now because it's the weekend and because it's a new project I'm excited to start, but I promise you entries are going to slow down dramatically once I go back to work. However, whether or not I'll have time to play during the week, I will still be amassing steps, which leads to a dilemma regarding what to do with them.
It is very easy for the Pokewalker to outpace the game, such that I'm playing Pokewalker more than I'm playing SoulSilver, and playing Pokewalker by itself is... a bit lacking gameplay-wise, shall we say. Plus, it makes it even easier to fall into numbers hell, since I have oodles of Watts and literally nothing better to do with them so I MAY AS WELL catch like ten copies of this one Pokemon on this one course, and then I MAY AS WELL sift through them looking for the best one with the right Nature and IVs and....
No. I need to be ready to hit myself with a rolled up newspaper and a spray bottle when that starts happening. I need to accept the fact that 95% of the steps I'm getting on this thing will go to waste, and that's fine, because it was supposed to be nothing more than a free for-fun "if you're going outside anyway may as well take your Pokewalker with you" deal in the first place. That's fine. I'll be fine.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to head out to the nearby Pokestop to get the daily streak bonus, and Scout is going to frolic through Refreshing Field. Am I a big enough dork to be incentivized to go get physical activity just so I can satisfy two different Pokemon games at the same time? Yes.
There are a lot of features this game prominently promotes in-game. Ethan and his Marill run around and play hide-and-seek and tag and whatever else--and come across as suspiciously shippable--just so that the game has an excuse to talk to you about how your lead Pokemon follows you around like that. NPCs have lines like "I wanted to take a rest, so I'm saving my game." However, there is one feature this game has that it doesn't promote at all, one that it just quietly unlocks without drawing attention to it. You need to have at least one Pokemon in PC storage, and then it will usable from the title menu (not even in-game once you load your save!)
HeartGold and SoulSilver shipped with a little device called the Pokewalker, a Pokeball-shaped step counter that connected to HG/SS proper. With it, you could beam one of your Pokemon from PC storage into the Pokewalker, gather points (or "Watts") by going on a real-life walk with your chosen Pokemon, and spend those Watts hunting down items and even more Pokemon that live in whatever specific Pokewalker course you chose when initiating the transfer. All in all, it's a neat gimmick, a sort of precursor prototype to the "Please go outside" mindset that would eventually become Pokemon Go. Of course, almost ten years later, no one still has their pack-in feelies for this game anymore, and it's probably just as well that no one in-game mentions this feature because no one would actually use it anyway.
Just kidding.
Hi, my fursona is quite literally a packrat. I'm that person who will acquire a board game and save everying even down to the empty trash cardboard sheets from which you punch out all the tiles. And Silver meant so much to me growing up that of course I preordered the special collector's edition of SoulSilver when it was first announced, and it's been sitting here box-and-all on my shelf ever since.
Of course I still have my Pokewalker. And of course it's still pristine and perfectly functional. It needed a new battery, obviously, but they take standard CR2032s and the battery compartment is specifically designed for easy access and replacement. There are even pack-in instructions on how to change the battery if you somehow can't figure out "unscrew the back plate, take old battery out, put new battery in, screw the back plate back on" and of course I still have those too.
I was briefly concerned over whether the connection would still work, since I'm playing this on a New 3DS XL instead of a DS and because DS-era Nintendo WFC has been shut down for years. Fortunately, the Pokewalker connects to HG/SS via a direct infrared beam aimed at the physical DS cart itself (!!!) so after all these years, the only thing even slightly wonky about all this is that the animation it plays while it's beaming your Pokemon to and from the Pokewalker is now wrong. (The slot to insert DS carts is in a different location on the New 3DS XL versus the DS. It's assuming you're still holding the Pokewalker behind the DS/above the top screen to point it at the cart, and so it plays a cute little animation of the Pokemon beaming from the bottom screen up to a picture of the Pokewalker on the top. However, at this point, I'm actually holding the Pokewalker in front of the DS/below the bottom screen. Wait Scout come back you're beaming the wrong waaaayyyyyy)
Now all that's left is the actual walking, which... actually, that's not really a problem for me, either. I lead a very walking-centric lifestyle. I don't have a car and I take the bus to and from work, despite the nearest bus stop being about a 20-30 minute walk from home. I like to go on walks in the morning on weekends as well, because I am generally concerned about being sedentary. (Did you know that clotting is a possible side effect of HRT? I have my Fitbit pester me to get up and get at least 250 steps per hour because deep vein thrombosis is not how I want to go.) In short, I am very easily good for at least 10,000 steps a day. I've already been gameifying that by getting into Pokemon Go, not because Pokemon Go by itself is the greatest game ever made, but because if I'm doing all that walking anyway then I may as well at least get points toward fish evolution for it.
So, to answer all the "You'll see why next time" mysteries from the last entry:
1) The stopping point I wanted to reach last night was the ability to catch Pokemon.
2) I wanted to have a Pokemon in PC storage to unlock the Pokewalker functionality.
3) I wanted to have all that done last night so that I could beam Scout to the Pokewalker this morning, so that I could take him with me on my morning walk.
4) His name is a dumb pun because he'll be recruiting all the cool Pokemon I find inside the Pokewalker, and he's a bird. He's a natural talon scout, you see.
At this point, I can now break this game's already non-existent difficulty curve wide open just by having the Pokewalker attached as I go about my normal day. In fact, it's such a potent tool that it was actually part of my undoing last time, and something I have to be careful about this time. I have far more time to clip a step counter to my belt and go to work and stuff than I do to sit down and play a DS game. You're seeing an early blast of entries right now because it's the weekend and because it's a new project I'm excited to start, but I promise you entries are going to slow down dramatically once I go back to work. However, whether or not I'll have time to play during the week, I will still be amassing steps, which leads to a dilemma regarding what to do with them.
It is very easy for the Pokewalker to outpace the game, such that I'm playing Pokewalker more than I'm playing SoulSilver, and playing Pokewalker by itself is... a bit lacking gameplay-wise, shall we say. Plus, it makes it even easier to fall into numbers hell, since I have oodles of Watts and literally nothing better to do with them so I MAY AS WELL catch like ten copies of this one Pokemon on this one course, and then I MAY AS WELL sift through them looking for the best one with the right Nature and IVs and....
No. I need to be ready to hit myself with a rolled up newspaper and a spray bottle when that starts happening. I need to accept the fact that 95% of the steps I'm getting on this thing will go to waste, and that's fine, because it was supposed to be nothing more than a free for-fun "if you're going outside anyway may as well take your Pokewalker with you" deal in the first place. That's fine. I'll be fine.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to head out to the nearby Pokestop to get the daily streak bonus, and Scout is going to frolic through Refreshing Field. Am I a big enough dork to be incentivized to go get physical activity just so I can satisfy two different Pokemon games at the same time? Yes.
no subject
Date: 2017-09-01 11:24 am (UTC)And you complain about my jokes. :p
no subject
Date: 2017-09-01 12:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-20 07:46 am (UTC)*adds a tiny paper origami boat to his fleet*
I don't think a Pokéwalker is the same as the Pikachu walker pet thing I used to have, but I wonder if you can game it the same way I did, by just shaking it by hand when you're not walking to get extra steps.
Sounds like that might be a bit dangerous for your gameplay, though.
...wait clots are a potential HRT side effect? I was never told this. Does T do it, too? I walk a little 'cause I can't drive and have to go shopping somehow but should I be stretching my legs and taking breaks from my chair more? I mean obviously I should anyway I guess but this may be something I should look into...
is name is a dumb pun because he'll be recruiting all the cool Pokemon I find inside the Pokewalker, and he's a bird. He's a natural talon scout, you see.
:p
no subject
Date: 2017-09-20 02:20 pm (UTC)That being said, I think the clotting (and also being prone to having your potassium levels shoot up) are more side effects of Spiro, specifically. I'm willing to guess that T has its own set of potential complications and side effects but I don't think those are among them. (I wouldn't know, because I have never asked my doctor about T. I'm moving in the other direction thank you.)
Even if they were, I'm told both are fairly minor and uncommon, as in don't live in an airplane seat for 23 hours a day and hoard more bananas than a Donkey Kong Country game and you'll be fine.
That being said, getting up and walking around a little per hour (my FitBit recommends 250 steps but YMMV) instead of being motionless all day is generally a good, healthy thing people should be doing anyway.
no subject
Date: 2017-09-20 02:36 pm (UTC)I don't think I'm super worried and honestly, my doctor's pretty new to handling the trans thing.
He's a good sort about it, but anything I ask he'd have to go look up.
I'll just try to stretch a bit more in general since I should be anyways.
Thanks again.
no subject
Date: 2017-09-21 03:17 am (UTC)Best wishes going forward, either way!
no subject
Date: 2017-09-21 04:24 am (UTC)But also thank you for replying to my many comments. :3
I know I can get chatty when I'm in an up mood.
no subject
Date: 2017-09-21 11:53 pm (UTC)And also because it breathes some more life into my friend page/read list/whatever we're calling it now. Holy crap the sheer number of comments I'm getting on my LP, it's like back when LiveJournal was in its prime.
So yes, I'm more than happy, believe me!
no subject
Date: 2017-09-22 02:45 am (UTC)I hope places like DW get more popular, because it sounds like a lot of people are jumping ship now, but I also joined one of those new up-and-coming social media sites (Pillowfort) and those are going to split the... let's call us refugees, for the drama of it.
I guess you could call the inciting incident when I blew up at Prokopetz for his stance on adults getting mad at kids trying to tell us we shouldn't be in fandom? But honestly I'd already been prepping to dig up my roots by then.
I'm just feeling so stressed out by the growing wave of anti-shipping sentiment in fandom.
- Dark fics are gross and you're endorsing what you write.
- Liking villains means you approve of the bad things they did.
- How dare you write whump about that character I love them you're clearly an abusive person
- Writing age gap ships is pedo apologism even if both characters are adults because one was still a child when the other became an adult! Anyways, the age gap automatically means a power imbalance which means it's abusive by default.
- Oh god you actually like writing abusive relationships? You're a monster!
- Existing as a 20+yo in a fandom that contains teenagers is automatically creepy and I want to call the cops on you.
- Just... the needle cookies incident.
- Writing this 17/18 ship is pedo because one's a child and one is an adult and this other 17/18yo ship is fine because it's not that big a gap honestly lots of 18yos are pretty much still children, shut up you can't ship the 18yo with the 25yo because that's abusive the age gap is too big and the 25yo is mentally ill and that means he'd be an abusive asshole.
...okay half of these are Voltron fandom stuff and I'm not in that fandom but... the ripples spread. And the ideas spread.
And Tumblr has pretty much destroyed old fandom manners and I'm just.. so tired and so angry and I want to not be tired and angry any more.
Sorry if this is a bit of a downer. But yeah.
That's why I'm packing my bags and moving back here.
I keep thinking I never should have gotten on Tumblr, but...
Then I'd have missed out on a good friend I've had for the last 3 or so years.
So I don't regret it.
I'm just... bitter.
no subject
Date: 2017-09-23 03:38 am (UTC)"I'm just.. so tired and so angry and I want to not be tired and angry any more."
I both understand and admire the hell out of this sentiment. That's also one of the many reasons I backed out myself, just for my own mental health; you could draw a pretty direct correlation between anxiety flareups and outright panic attacks I've had vs. time spent following political posts on Tumblr and Twitter.
"I keep thinking I never should have gotten on Tumblr, but..."
Yeah, I kind of know this feeling too. I can think of two people whom I credit for inspiring me to mature out of my edgy phase, going from "I want to be Ben Crowshaw when I grow up"-style shitting on bad things for LOLs to unironically liking things and embracing heartfelt sincerity... and I met both those people thanks to Tumblr.
So... yeah, that place is a toxic hellhole and I'm glad I got out, but I'm also glad I got in originally. Life is all about experiences, and what you get from them and take with you as you move forward.
no subject
Date: 2017-09-23 04:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-23 04:15 am (UTC)"That's an odd option for cancelling a post", I felt, but didn't stop myself. :/
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Date: 2017-09-23 04:17 am (UTC)I'm going to post it again.
I'm sorry about the spam if you're getting email notifications like I do. :(
no subject
Date: 2017-09-23 05:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-23 06:15 pm (UTC)That's why I've been doing my airport game entries in a word file then copying them over.
I save pretty much every sentence I add.
Repost
Date: 2017-09-23 04:18 am (UTC)I'm with you on the anxiety flareups.
And I think every single actual panic attack I've had has been while I was on Tumblr?
But I've been feeling safer and more comfortable in the last couple days already.
Like, because DW is so much like LJ, it's familiar. And because you started talking with me right away. And because I've been unfollowing several blogs on Tumblr and trimming my feed...
Already it's feeling more like DW is my "home" and Tumblr is just "a place I go".
And I'm just having a return of a feeling I get sometimes. Of having to be crammed into an invisible box, and finally getting to unfold, even a little.
I'm glad you can like things unironically now.
Sincerity is much more fun, imo. :p
Re: Repost
Date: 2017-09-23 05:06 pm (UTC)Like I've said before, I was watching you on Tumblr for ages with this sort of "this person seems neat, I should say hi sometime" vibe, but it's hard to do that when everything's a reblog that gets spread around like that. Then I left for DW, then you left for DW and I was like "YESSSS FINALLY THIS IS MY CHANCE." Seems to be working out pretty nicely so far!
A bit scattered on this one
Date: 2017-09-23 06:06 pm (UTC)I guessed I'd mentally put you in among the "cool kids" of fandom, because you'd done the Hatoful LPing and then some of those other games I don't remember as well. And you had this big friendgroup. And I always feel like a background character in someone else's anime. :p
Since you seem to be on or close to my day schedule, I'm really hoping I can stop being so nocturnal soon so we can talk more.
At some point I'll have invite you to me Discord, after the two friends I have there have a chance to vet you. :p
(Don't worry, they put up with me, you're fine. Mary may be amused that "of course your next friend was a furry too".)
Though huh. A thought. Given your anxiety maybe I should warn you that my mum is sometimes on there?
I mean, she helps me edit my fanfics. She's super chill. Just, in case that's an intimidating thought.
Also, I just had an odd thought.
I have a tendency to want to help people get to know me by throwing previously-written things at them because in the moment I tend to panic and lock up.
And I have recordings of me playing games with my friends, from our fumbling attempts to become minor Youtube names.
So I want to link you a video in case you'd find it interesting and it might teach you a bit about me and how I do friendship.
I mean I wouldn't say this is like, the perfect example but it's what I thought of just now and hoped would be good to share.
I mean, it's more Yogscast fandom stuff and it's about 24min long so maybe you're not interested in this specific thing but-... Ah, ah. I'm going to interrupt myself before I end up with another 3 paragraphs of explanations and disclaimers.
Here's a link, watch or not. I'm going to go anxiety for a bit. :p
Doctor Lalnable has a visit from the police
Re: A bit scattered on this one
Date: 2017-09-23 06:09 pm (UTC)Now that I've done that, I should warn you, somewhat belatedly, that my anxiety-riddled friendship style is heavy on "find a shiny and throw it at my friends because if I don't keep them amused they'll leave me because I'm a bore and an emotional leech I need to constantly provide them with links and picture and toys and stories and jokes or I'm a bad friend!"
...but somehow I suspect you understand the sentiment. :p
Re: A bit scattered on this one
Date: 2017-09-23 11:02 pm (UTC)Normally when I send "this person seems neat, I hope we can talk more someday" feelers out and they don't immediately bear fruit, I assume it's because that person was too cool for me. It somehow never occurs to me to consider that maybe they're just shy, too.
I should warn you that I'm not super active on Discord (I'm there sometimes I guess,) but it would be neat to say hi at least every now and then. :3 I'm definitely shy in situations like meeting your friends, but I would consider that to be, like, shy within workable parameters? Like I don't consider it to be in the realm of actual panic/anxiety issues. Those tend to be reserved for either politics (I had a full "45 minutes of sleep, throwing up in the bathroom all night, just wishing for death just to make the suffering stop" panic attack on election night, but I mean who didn't) or just my body deciding to do that for literally no reason. Like I said, I'm not out of the woods yet but I'm at least doing better than before these days, after unplugging from Tumblr and Twitter.
So yeah, compared to that your friends seem fine. <3
Also, I'm like a Bond villain's pet cat or something, in that I primarily sit there and feed off affection. You don't need to dazzle me with nonstop entertainment or anything, just pet me. :P You've been nothing but kind so far and I'm getting all warm and fuzzy already, so I think we're good!
Re: A bit scattered on this one
Date: 2017-09-24 03:01 am (UTC)The people with actual confidence are out like, networking and learning corporate management, or strting up a new small business, or other stuff that confident people do? I dunno, that is a magical world of legend to me.
But yeah, if you hadn't caught me in an upswing, if I'd been more depressed when you talked to me, I might have come across as aloof and indifferent to you, but really it would be me staring at your posts going, "I want to say something back, but words. Words are hard. I'll say the wrong thing. I don't have the energy. Bluh."
So um. Fair warning, that happens sometimes. I go quiet and it's because of a misbehaving brain, not a sudden disinterest. I'll try to give you a heads up if I'm getting too downswing to chat, I'm getting better about noticing it happening and saying things. Turns out communicating your emotions is a learnable skill?
Ugh, politics... I can't even pay too close attention to what's happening except through comedy news (like Colbert) or my brain starts shutting down in frustrated exhaustion.
I'm glad our interactions are so positive for your end, too, so far! :3
Friend #1 okayed you already btw. I think he figures "any friend of Scott's should be fine". Friend #2 seems to not have picked up on the implied question in "I mentioned the possibility of inviting my new friend to the discord, but also said my existing friends would have to vet her first", so I'm going to have to ask her more directly.
Actually, lemme just do that now, she's on.
...and she's say's it's fine.
I should probably send you the link privately though. :p