ghost – Pinkie's Paradise

Pinkie Creates an Anime: Midnight Blues

Hear Ye Hear Ye! Princess Pinkie has returned with a new Anime Post

Salutations my loyal subjects and sweet island guests! Randomness has taken a hold on my content as of late! And I am having a lot of fun with more creative writing! I started a segment where I create anime based on a random theme, mixed in with a random genre! So I created the Horror-Anime concept Kuro-Queen! Colin, whom you may know better as Periwinkle or Buffalo Retro Gaming, came up with a very random concept. A story about an insomniac man who inherited a haunted Piano… but my challenge was to make it a drama! I went to work and I created “Midnight Blues”

Disclaimers

To give people a sense of what I am talking about, these posts use images that are heavily edited and altered and sometimes feature the work of multiple artists. It is impossible to credit them all, but I do want to state I never want to sell these things as my creations.. these are my “collages” at best. I will try to credit an original artist for custom art whenever I can. If you are interested in a piece, give me a shout on twitter, I will send you the original art and you might be able to find it’s amazing artist.

Character inspiration, I tend to draw from other bloggers, though I will not mention them by their true name or provide links, to avoid possibly unwanted association. If I ever put someone in a negative role, it has nothing to do with the person, but just like most writers I draw inspiration from the people around me… and all of you guys apply for that standard. I will tend to stick to these types of associations as an extra entertainment value for readers in the community as well. “Spot the blogger” kind of thing! If you dislike the idea of me using a character based on you, let me know. I always mean this in good spirit! These characters are NOT real people! They are only somewhat based on them, so any traits given are made up or enlarged.

To keep this series going I would love to see people interact! Giving new theme+genre suggestions! However it is also a series that gives me great pleasure. This is how I like to write the most! So if people do not react in the comments, I will find a way to make it work! By creating random “wheels”to spin words off! People who make suggestions are very appreciated though! Not only will you be shouted out at the intro, you truly have my thanks! Making stories based on people’s suggestions are even more satisfying to write! Speaking of writing stories, let’s get into this one!

The Set Up

**The animation style would be similar to this !**

A Drama about an insomniac man who inherited a piano! Wow, did Colin give me a challenge this time around! First let’s start with finding a platform for our anime! I think Crunchyroll this time might not be the best fit! A lot of the Crunchyroll originals tend to be a bit more action driven.. and this one, will be significantly slower paced. It will most likely be a single season anime, with about twelve episodes. I think Netflix would be a great place to launch this anime from. I would love to see it animated in a bit of a Ghibli-esque way. Maybe some more crayon-like drawings in the background. Natsume Book of Shadows is another thing that has a great art style for this. Or perhaps something like Liz and the Blue Bird.

The setting would take place in a small village in the United States during the mid 1950’s, named Ellington, named after the amazing Jazz Pianist and composer, Duke Ellington. This town would be situated very closely to New York.. or a fictional variant of it like York New city from Hunter X Hunter. The name of the large city would be New Liberty! The city will mostly serve as a background setting. A way to get materials and information otherwise not accessible to small town folks in the mid 50’s. It will also be featured in the ending of most of the episode. It will help sell the world outside of the United states, that this in fact IS america! Everything is a bit more music themed though. Lady Liberty holds a harp instead of a book, and many neighbourhoods are named after musical greats (of course America’s greats). Instead of Brooklyn we’d have Louisville, Manhattan would be named after Philip

Glass, and so on!

The First Episode

**1930’s Version of the main character!**

We start our series by seeing a happy young boy, with a dark skin tone seeing his sister take a piano lesson! He asks his mother if he can play the piano as well. His mother tells him when he is older. The sister makes a mistake and gets frustrated walking off. The piano teacher let’s her, this has happened before. He sees the boy while waiting for his student to cool off and invites him to join. He then begins talking to the boy that he is writing some music and if the boy wants to hear it. He excitedly says yes, the man begins to play the most beautiful melody he has ever heard, but it is not finished. The man is stuck at the ending. The boy then asks if he could play and the teacher chuckles and lets him. The boy almost flawlessly repeats after the teacher.. after some searching. He then even manages to compose an ending to it. The teacher, baffled by this boy’s talent asks how he did that.. and he says he remembers what sounds all the keys make.. so he knew which one to press after hearing it once. The teacher calls him Wunderkind and then we move fast forward in time.

**Main character, based on Aly from Love Shore**

In an first episode opening credits scene we see newspapers fly around. Titled “Local Boy perfectly plays Beethoven” , Talented Boy performing life at New Liberty City theaters. We also see a trophy case being filled.. and then the music darkens. Messages of the second world war begin to show up.. it is upon them. Slowly some fire is shown around the edges of the screen. We hear gunshots and screams as slowly we see a much more mature face in the middle of the screen.. seemingly laying on a bed! We then see the picture of a woman, we hear one loud gunshot and our main character wakes up. This character. The Character is called James “Jimmy” Lampreyshire. As we see him wake up we notice he is missing an eye. His morning routine starts and we see him put in a fake eye, it’s iris has this cold steel colour…. almost iridium He also attaches a leg brace. After breakfast he exits his crummy apartment and goes to do some things in the city. He does his job, he picks up groceries. But even though everyone greets him warmly Jimmy seems to not care..or not notice. He doesn’t even seem to comprehend how some kids on the street are making fun of him. Jimmy is emotionally detached due to PTSD.

At the end of his routine Jimmy comes home , to his New Liberty apartment and finds there is a telegram in his mailbox . “We regret to inform you that on March 2nd 1956 Maria Lampreyshire has passed” .. we do not see the rest of the message. It turns out Jimmy inherited the house! His sister had joined the war as a nurse and had fallen in love with a soldier overseas. She had moved away! She never could deal with Jimmy’ new situation anyway. He originally moved into the city for his music career, but now that he did not wish to deal with people anymore, he was unable to perform. He tried for a while. .but he could not connect to his audience anymore. Not with his employers either, so Jimmy barely made a living. He had some money left from his successful days but that money was drying up quickly! Perhaps he could make a new life in Ellington!

When Jimmy entered the empty home he grew up in, he would walk around , and try to remember his youth.. he could.. but it just felt so empty! Then his eyes moved to the piano! This was not the piano he first practiced on! They had to sell that to send him to music school. But then he remembered the Piano.. it came from that old theater.. a really creepy theater.. from the lower bowls of Louisville. Where he gave his first “professional” performance. The place was shut soon after.. Some tragedy struck the place. Jimmy however was already onto better things by then…for the first time he cracks a bit of a smile as he swipes a bit of dust from the Piano. As Jimmy walks through the house we see a thinner line where the dust has cleared appear right above his. The first episode ends with Jimmy tossing and turning in his bed again..he can’t calm himself down to sleep! He hears those sounds again.. gunshot.. screams, people yelling in german. Then he hears something else.. a strange piano melody.. and it’s not coming from his head.. it’s coming from downstairs.

The Second Episode

**Original sunken place art.. by R . Daniel.. and yes I was too lazy to edit in a Leg Brace**

Jimmy would rush downstairs , as best as he could, but making a lot of stumbling noise holding a weapon! He would be in full soldier mode again! We see it in the way he moves.. but also in the way the scenery sometimes shifts to a battlefield. Making his way into the Piano room, only to find out that no one is there! The music had stopped as well… had he imagined it?! He was pretty sure he never heard that song before! It was beautiful, yet also tragic. It had a sense of loneliness to it! He shook his head and decided to investigate! The stool was still underneath the piano! So no one sat on it! .. The front door was locked! Yet on a third search of the piano he found the little line mark right above his! Someone had been playing his piano! After searching the house once more.. he decided to investigate who broke into his house that night! It must be one of the own people. The next day Jimmy just did that.. he went into town..just to hit that old problem! People gave him condolences for the loss of his mother, others reacted a bit offended by his wild accusations of someone breaking into his house, yet he could not read any of them. To him it felt as if he was talking to a wall. As he talked he felt as if he was sinking away inside himself.

He saw an old lady who was sitting on porch who waved at him. Her hands looked crooked and slow by age.. she would not be able to play the piano that great! The mechanic in town, who was being scolded by his wife and who yelled back at her had to big hands, he could not be the one either. Maybe it was that sickly looking woman, dressed in all pinks, who spent all her time at the clothing store, looking quite unhappy and unsatisfied with what was on the rack. Perhaps it was that drunk woman, who tried to get people to join her in drinking.. but was shunned. Or perhaps it was that slender looking boy who kept staring at him, while he was waiting on a bus to go to the city? Jimmy found no answers, and he did not understand these people! The unrest in his head began again… he would set a trap for whomever would come in. Not a lethal one.. just something that would allow him to identify the perk! A paint bomb-like trap. At every door.. at every window! So Jimmy bought a bunch of materials from the hardware store, from a man who complained about his job a lot to Jimmy, who ignored it and just paid his bill! Yet even after he set all the traps.. as he lay awake at night again, like usually.. he heard that same song coming from the piano. How did they avoid the traps?! Jimmy decided to sneak downstairs. Not rush down like last time.. this time he would catch them by surprise. He still had his brace on! He was prepared!

When he snuck closer, he noticed a faint green/bluish light came out of the Piano room.. and as he peered through the glass door leading to the salon.. he saw this fire like.. standing in front of the piano.. but in that greenish blue tint. When he looked closer, he saw some faint line works around the fire…revealing the shapes of a .. probably beautiful.. woman. Normally Jimmy would feel fear… but ..he realised something.. While the song played .. he did not hear the noises in his head. No screams, no gunfire.. just this beautiful song! He ducked down and decided to just listen! As he closed his eyes he visualised the song. It had a lot of energy.. goodness! Bright tones of a happy person leading a happy life! Yet as the song progressed, many of the side tones would fade away, with only the bright element still going on! It did no longer feel as bright.. It felt lonely! Then something happened that never really happened anymore! Our protagonist was lulled to sleep .. in which he saw himself as a much older version of himself.. all alone.. he wanted to reach out to people but they seemed so far away.. an endless hallway.. kept them apart Suddenly everything seemed very cold as the darkness came closing in.. all he felt was that he hoped that someone would sit with him before the he drew his final breath came for him.

The next day Jimmy woke up, feeling kinda warm and slightly more well rested. The dust cover off the piano that he had kept laying in the room was draped over him .. like a blanket?! Was it that ghostly apparition?! Did she cover him up?! When he moved to the piano he found a message to him written in the dust.. it read “help her”. Jimmy scratched his head! Help who?! The ghost seemed harmless enough.. and for some weird reason she managed to reach him.. no one did that in a long time.. so while he convinced himself he must be crazy.. he decided he would try to do what the ghost had asked of him. He returned some unopened paint cans and some of the materials he could return before walking around town. What could it mean?! The old lady on the porch waved at him again.. he nodded and ignored her for the most part.. but then took a step back. Could it be?! He remembered his dream. It could not?! He walked to the old lady and greeted hair, introducing himself. She offered him some iced tea and asked him to sit with her for a while. She knew he was Maria’s kid.. the one so good at the piano. The old lady would introduce herself as Clara Codwell and said Jimmy might not remember it anymore but she used to babysit him when his parents were out of town. She then talks about the town and her happy memories and Jimmy then knows! This is the woman in the song! The song is about her!

For the next few days Jimmy would hear the ghost play the same song and he would visit the woman in the afternoon, and while he might not really be able to understand the sadness within her for outliving all the ones she held dear.. and being forgotten by the next generation, he felt as if he had an obligation to this woman! He would make her less lonely for the last of her days! Over the next few days the woman would grow more energetic and smile more, wondering who will finally be the one that will crack that steel mask that Jimmy is wearing. He ends up sharing something with her.. a dream he had as a kid.. to compose a song.. about him.. capture himself in song form.. his story to live forever through the ages. To reach an immortality of sorts.The woman would laugh but to encourage him to do so! She tells him she thinks Jimmy would be a completely unique song.. it probably be a blues styled song…but it would be unlike anything anybody’s heard. When Jimmy tries to visit her the next day.. he discovers the old lady has passed away in her sleep! As he goes home.. feeling empty… yet he was happy that the woman did not go into the darkness alone.
I am the blues huh?! Jimmy sits down at the piano.. and finds “thank you” written in the dust.. as he writes the first five notes.. of his own song! The next night we see him performing again in New Liberty, a tiny stage.. a few people in the crowd stare at him as he plays granny’s song on his face and rolls a single tear.

The Series Picks Up

From there on out Jimmy would hear a new song, for the next episode. He buys a Ouija board to talk with the ghost, and later they communicate through song. To a point where it is almost like speaking. They form a friendship of sorts, as the woman who has died is teaching Jimmy to live again, after all his traumas. He saw the worst in man, both friend and foe, he lost so many people that he became detached. Humanity lost its shine to him.. but by playing the songs of the amazing people around him, the ghostly woman that haunts his Piano teaches Jimmy how to feel again, how to open his heart again and show empathy! If he can see the song inside people.. he can see their beauty again. Yet the woman seems quite secretive about her own fate.

Bleach 686 Rant -END- – Honest Linn — **Art by Hirata S**

In the third episode, Jimmy gets a song that consists of two very separate melodies.. that kinda harmonise with each other.. but the transition is too raw.. too rough! The Chorus and refrain do not really connect that will, but they should! The music should work.. they just need a bridge! So the veteran has to discover, this is a song about the car mechanic and his wife, who love each other very much but they live their own lives too much, not paying attention to each other enough! While helping the mechanic with some minor tasks, our hero discovers he really wants a kid… but his wife never wants sex anymore, so he retreats hoping she will start to miss him.. When he goes to the store the wife works at, she tells him she wants a kid…but she can’t raise the kid alone if her husband is always at work. Jimmy sets up an romantic evening for them and the two fight, but fall in love all over again. They would tell Jimmy he is a very compassionate person when they initially thought he was just a brute. Which gives him inspiration for his own song again.

And so the series goes down, showing how tiny problems, like not noticing someone waving and smiling, or failed communication can lead to big trouble for a person. While all these problems have simple solutions it would not be something a person alone can solve. The drunk girl wanted a drinking buddy, so she didn’t have to drink alone, but people think she is just an obnoxious drunk! It turns out she is only an obnoxious drunk because she always has to finish the bottle alone and she has nothing else to do at the bar but to drink! When someone talks with her and shares the bottle, she is actually a very fun person! She becomes friends with good old James Lapreyshire.. and she hears a lot of stories in town so she can help him interpret his songs! Though she does keep turning everything into a drinking game.

**I wonder who the pink girl is based on?**

The girl dressed in all pink that can’t make up her mind in fashion wishes to be acknowledged. She feels invisible and invalid! She is very scared of rejection, but she is also very unwilling to pretend to be anything she is not… She had to do that for so long in her life, pretending to be a different person than she was, that now she can’t accept that. Somehow she convinced herself that if the entire town doesn’t like her she will be alone, so Jimmy starts a group of friends in town.. a small one but one that fully accepts the sickly girl as she is! He shows her it is enough! Giving her a place to belong. Yet he also takes her on a shopping trip to the big city! Showing that it is okay to look at different places as well. The guy in the hardware store, he supports me in going through a career change! It might make him financially insecure for a bit, but he convinces the man that sometimes it is better to take a risk, and that without it he never will be truly happy and gets stuck in a drag.

In the second to last episode, Jimmy gets a song he doesn’t recognise. It doesn’t apply to anybody in town, he gets frustrated.. he has come so far and now he still doesn’t know who this song applies too! He goes out to the bar to hang out with the drunk, the pink girl and the storekeeper, who have since become his friends. There is a Piano at this bar and at one moment he begins playing the song, asking his friends if they might know the meaning.. Each and every one of them needed his help, perhaps now he needs theirs. Together they deduce that the song might be about Jimmy’s sister. Who misses her tiny brother, as he shut her out when they both were alone. Jimmy calls his sister, and apologises. They talk for a bit and she tells him something that seems to make him very happy! A plane ride to London scene transition later, we see him holding a baby at his sisters bedside. The mom tells the baby this is his uncle Jimmy. We move back to New Liberty, by seeing the trip was a memory in our main character’s head.. while playing the sisters song on stage.

The final song is much easier to figure out! It is the song of the ghost, the woman who died at that very first Piano he played at. Having done research Jimmy has discovered she was a performer like him, who got shot by her husband, who thought she cheated on him. This was only a half truth. The artist had a gimmick, where she would look at an audience member who paid them to do so.. and write a song about them. Their sorrows or happiness. One time a woman appeared and asked her to write a song! The song our ghost saw was so beautiful that she immediately fell in love with the women. She was so awestruck she could never play the song for the woman. It made her realise how bad her husband was for her and she was ready to leave him, but before she could ever play the song to that woman.. She was shot! She was gaslit by him for so long.. and before she could free herself, she was denied the chance.

Jimmy who now has become a big hit again has to play in the big city once more.. and he invites a now old woman. A woman he found through research and by asking the people in the city opening up to them, learning their stories, showing his growth. He takes his piano to the concert (he now is famous so he can) and together the ghost and Jimmy play the song. Jimmy tells a story about a friend he made.. who wants to play promised she would play this song for someone important one day.. she never got the chance… but now he will help her with this! The old woman in the public immediately realises what this is and begins crying. As the audience cheers.. a sense of melancholy is shown in colour usage in the episode.. as everything seems to go more dim.

Jimmy knows that his spectral friend will go away now! She is at peace! They say their goodbyes.. but not before the woman writes one last message followed by a few notes in the dust on the piano! Jimmy’s set on stage is finished and the message written on the piano consists of a single word. Which is reflected in the words of the audience. “Encore”. As Jimmy sees all the towns folks in the audience, he realises he can hear all of their songs, but also the song of the man sitting alone on the table sipping ..he buys the man a drink and tells him to let loose a bit of water. He makes a joke about a lovey dovey couple in the front row, they laugh. Then Jimmy gets all serious, he tells how all these songs he played tonight were to very important people to him… and a friend of his.. but his last song… that is his own song! The series credits appear as Jimmy plays the song based on him!

What did you think of this story?! Do you possibly have a random theme and a random topic for me to write about?!
Next in line will be Apple Inversion: A Slice of Life Nudist Anime for Fred, and Riri’s Rainbow Rally, a Magical Girl show about Rally racing for Foovay! But I welcome more challenges! So if you have a funny and random idea! Please interact! I love doing these challenges! Of course if you just want to read that is fine as well! And if you really want to support the blog, please consider helping out on Kofi! Until the next time! Stay random!

Pinkie Creates an Anime : Kuro-Queen The Poker-Horror Anime

Hear Ye Hear Ye, Princess Pinkie has returned with another anime post!

Salutations my loyal subjects and sweet island guests! I have come to the conclusion that I like dabbling in stories and creative writing a lot more than flat out reviewing anime or games for that matter. I like creating new ideas! So I will start doing that more from now on! Unless you totally shoot it down! I challenge myself to create an anime, or a game concept or whatever by choosing a genre and a topic at random (Because randomness is also still a thing here) . Today I decided to put the topic of Poker together with the genre of Horror. As I wrote the concept for an anime called “Kuro-Queen”

The Disclaimers

So let’s talk about how I will do this anime creation series. I do hope for some audience interaction when it comes to challenging me with new ideas, however the past has shown me that people are a bit reluctant to offer new ideas in the comments and these posts usually have little interaction. So if I do not receive any ideas from the audience I will create a few wheels with genres and topics and roll a combination at random. So your support is welcome .. but if you rather just read through the post that is fine as well! People who offer an idea will be shouted out in the respective post though!

Characters that I will use will often be obviously inspired by people around the blogosphere or generally known characters. This does not mean I want to force them to associate their blog with mine in any way. They are part of my life though and thus I take inspiration from them. For the sake of comedy these references will be fairly on the nose as it will be fun for readers to find the counterparts of all the characters. So if I use you and you take offence please let me know.. I probably will think that is rather petty.. but I will stop using you, I like the community and everyone in it and I assure you everything I do is all in good fun and never meant to hurt anyone. I will also not shout out the inspirations as I do not know if the wish to associate with me, nor does this work have anything to do with their blog.

I can not do art but since I use some weird concepts I will use reference art with wil often be a bunch of art slapped together to give you an impression of what kind of look I am going for. This means I can not really credit everyone who provided fuel for these images but I will do my best. It is never my intention to claim these works of art as my own simply to show them to you and give you an impression. Now onto our story!

The Set-Up

Horror and Poker seem like two words that are hard to combine. Thriller and Poker is easily done but how do we bring something like Poker together with Horror?! That will be trough the titular character. The Kuro-Queen. The anime is basically a deconstruction of the sport/card battle anime genre where our protagonist has a special power that makes him or her especially good at a game. However unlike Yu-Gi-Oh , Keijo or even Saki for that matter we will not simply approach the hero’s ability as a strength! It will also be something that haunts them. The series would be aimed as a single season anime with a potential second second story if successful but not much more after that. Pacing Wise a season would need to have about 16 episodes of 21 minutes. Given that horror and Poker are more popular concepts in the west, a Netflix or Crunchyroll exclusive seems like the best media to launch from.

Macau - 12 Sept: Timelapse : vidéo de stock (100 % libre de droit) 4880894 | Shutterstock

The setting is where I had the most trouble deciding which route to go. Horror suffers deeply from the plethora of technology to get yourself out of hairy situations. Research is super easy and finding yourself all alone is never as big of a problem due to us always being able to call someone or reach out to someone on Discord or whatever. A great flavourful choice for Poker games to prevent that would be America during the prohibition area. The Mafia and war on crime days. Like Baccano. The problem with this though is that horror in the past is much less relatable. A lot of problems our heroes could easily solve these days! It would also be a very obvious choice. Since magical powers and mysticism is involved in the story I decided to set the story in Macau instead. It is often depicted as a seedy grim place full of crime, but also a lot of tourism and gambling and the tropical heat could provide some interesting challenges. The main character would be in foreign territory which solves some of the problems of modern day horror.

The first Episode

The story would follow the adventures of Jonathan , a young man from a moderately wealthy game development company.The Landstar Corporation. His father George Landstar has forbidden Jonathan to use the company’s funds to finance his latest game, about his favourite animals. Ducks! Jonathan really believes in his own resource management game and wishes to prove his father wrong. In a lapse of Judgement Jonathan decides to go to a retirement home and play against some old timers in his favourite card game “Hearts”. He plays for money as these old people usually have plenty with little time left… it’s resource management at it’s finest. He is a gifted card man so he can cheat fairly easily! Only this time.. the game shown in the first episode goes horribly wrong. An old chinese lady catches him cheating and puts a curse on him. At first Jonathan laughs this off , as the old lady curses him to forever be followed by the Queen of Spades.. but soon Jonathan realises the card that holds the most points in Hearts is glued to his hands.. his swindeling career is over…or so it seems!

We jump ahead in time, we see Jonathan at some local casino play a new game. Five Card Monte. We see him draw three queens. Hearts, Clubs and Diamonds and without blinking an eye he only trades in one card as he goes all in. People show their hands as everyone is all in and people tell Jonathan is a fool, he should have trades an extra card for an extra chance to make something good. One guy a full house, Aces over Kings, as he tells Johnathan only has one chance left. They make an illegal bet for our hero’s shiny watch, while the scoundrel on the table bets his. Jonathan coldly accepts and to no surprise at all to him.. he gets the queen of spades dealt to him. Mister Landstar exits the table taking the watch and the pot. He almost has enough money to finance his game now! As he walks home he can not help but feel like he is followed. In the street shadows he sees the shadow of a woman wearing a crown. Yet there is no light to cast a shadow!

Our Protagonist arrives at home, he has a friend sleeping over on the couch! He barely gets up to acknowledge Johnathan. The man is a total leech! John asks his friend when he is going to find a job, he tells him it is time to find a new job. His friend makes up an excuse and John accepts it for now as the friend showers him with compliments for all the great concepts of games John makes and the great quizzes he hosts for his friends. John is tired after a long night of hitting poker tables all across town and goes to bed. Late at night his friend wakes up from hearing the sound. He asks if Jonathan can toss him a can of cold one. A beer can flies his way and hits his head hard. The man curses a bit and asks why John did that. Then he sees it is not John standing in front of him but before he can scream his head is bashed in with what seems to be a golden crown with scorch marks.

The Second Episode

Our main character wakes up , smelling a burning scent coming from down stairs. Did his friend try to make omelettes again?! As he moves downstairs he finds the corpse of his friend.. his head misshapen and bloody and in his hands is a a queen of spades card that burns up as soon as our hero sees it. Panicked John calls the police, whom to his surprise do not suspect him at all. He was fully expecting to be the prime suspect here. Yet a police officer tells him that this low life card shark a few blocks further suffered a similar fate. There were some witnesses that all saw the same suspect. A woman’s face shrouded behind a black vale and wearing a crown. Those two are not even the only victims. As John hears that nearly all the card games he had been to have had a fatality he knows his curse is way worse than he had thought.

After he has been released by the police he moves to the geriatric home to find the old lady to undo his curse, but he is told the lady has moved back to Macau to live with her son. Yet she left him a letter, as if she expected him to come back. The attendant of the hospital gives John his note and in it is a plane ticket to Macau and an invitation to a high stakes Poker Tournament. So high stakes that John will have to sell everything he owns, just to pay the ante to participate. The woman Nushi Zuzhou says she will undo his curse of he can beat her son in the tournament. The main character originally refuses this, thinking if he doesn’t play cards that the queen will not show up again. He goes to his father and asks to be funded for the tournament just in case. His father refuses saying poker still is gambling no matter good how John will be. That this curse John talks about is just in his head.. caused by stress and an unhealthy lifestyle. John shows him his ability trying to covince it isn’t gambling when you have this. His father scoffs and tells John it is just one of his old party tricks! He isn’t funding a trip to China.. and he suspects it is just a ruse to fund that game, John can’t play him! The son goes home cursing his bad relationship with his father.

He wakes up the next day by a distressed phone call. His father has been murdered. They found a single playing card in his hand. The queen of spades. As an eulogy is read, John looks at the concept for the card game he wanted to make.. and all the money he had saved up to make it a reality. He then tosses his concept in the garbage bin.. and the money he hides in his suitcase. We see flashes of the funeral of George as well as Johathan checking into an airport. As the flight attendant welcomes everyone on board , she welcomes a latecomer, a woman dressed in all black, who smells a bit like charcoal. As her other attendant asks who she was talking to, the woman tries to point out the shrouded dame, but she doesn’t see her on the plane at all. The pair chuckle a bit saying the woman probably needs a vacation.

The series picks up

The third episode sees John settling in Macau, but he can not stay in one place for to long! Each game of cards he plays makes the queen of spades stronger. With every time she shows up in his hand, she can move faster, she begins to gai n the strength to rip of limbs and even cast some magic. Even if kids play cards near him, his eye will fall on the queen of spades strengthen the black suited lady. She gets an ability to burn people on touch, as happens to a poor street swindler who had an encounter with John, who would not let the man pass unless he could guess the card in his hands…. We are also introduced to the gambling king Kay. Who at his Mu-Vhy’s Kasino will hold the tournament that will decide John’s fate. He himself also seems fearful of something. Stating no one will know this tournament.. asking himself loudly what his mother has done. Wishing there was another way!… We then see him play a game with a terrified looking maid and butler, whom he forces to flip the next card.. as the queen of spades shows up! The lights in the room flicker, screams can be heard and Kay leaves the room, looking displeased.

The show would follow the tournament taking place as a one week survivors match. Each day a variant of Poker will be played. Five Card Monte, Jacks are Wilds, Texas Hold Em, Omaha. If you lose all your money, you are out! No buys in, no second chances. It will be a journey where John encounters several types of poker players. Such as a father trying to gain enough money and pass the first round so he can buy health care for his daughter but also a crime lord, who wants to use the tournament to get powerful enough weapons to take over a neighbourhood. On the last day of the tournament people can face this man named Kay and if they manage to bust him, rumor has it his mother can bestow you with magical powers. Let alone the wealth you’d win! Some people are here for the money, some are here for the magic, others never even show their true face.

Because of the risk of making an enemy of local crime lords, the Landstar heir decides to wear a mask during his games. As his Poker Mask John uses a white face mask with a red question mark on it! This not only helps him hide having 0 reaction the that one card flipping up.. and make him harder to track for mob bosses.. but maybe! Just maybe it can fool the queen herself. It gets him the poker handle of Mister Mystery! It is an alias that helps John move around in the city as well! Allowing him to exploit shadier places.. for example when he tries to get a weapon to defend himself! Or when he is doing some research into the identity of this mysteriously wealthy Kay fellow, who appeared out of no where! And no one knows where he came from! He seems to have some connection to the Kuro-Queen!

Each tournament day would be roughly two episodes. With one focusing on the poker match and the other on trying to escape the Kuro-Queen. She will go away for a day once she has been killed, but she will also not rest until she does, relentlessly chasing until she gets a kill. . So fairly soon in the series John realises he has to recognise who is a bad guy at this table. Only by doing this might he be able to save innocents. This journey will take John to dark places, not only does he consider harming himself to save others from the queen, but when he finds out that will only set her free, he now has to decide who lives and who dies. He is forced to be close with criminals, which might mean he has bankrupted a young man trying to make the money to give his terminally ill wife her dream wedding before she goes. If he bankrupts the criminals, they will disappear and innocents will fall victim to the monster hunting him. So he has to make some insane choices.

Sometimes John will give the money to the deserving and try everything in his power to save them from death, sometimes he can not put them or himself at risk because if the Kuro Queen is freed things would be much worse. It will all be a tricky balancing act, where Poker skills will directly apply to survival as well. Reading people, calling their bluffs , seeing trough smokescreens! Many other people will wear masks or sunglasses as well, so sometimes he has to get people to talk, other times he has to look at their hand motions.. or consider how much delays are between the start of their turn and their plays. With some episodes allowinging him to do some research, while others force him to end a game quickly..because he can find the queen drawing closer. When John finds out that Kay has been stricken with the same curse as him, and his mother was manipulating them all along the final game ends up being more high stakes than ever, involving strategies and risks no one in their right mind would ever take. The season would end with the old lady meeting her demise and either Kay , John or both being freed of their curse.

The second season could revolve around the actual ghost of the Queen not being stopped yet. While the woman who summoned her might be gone, whomever survived the final duel would have to find a way to destroy the original body of the Kuro-Queen, hints on her identity and lore would have leaked in season 1 but season 2 would dive deeper into her mythos and story as she is trying to manipulate other gamblers of willingly taking on her power this time round to give them an edge.If she can kill her host, she will be set free at last and our hero whomever it may be can not allow this to occur. If the season would end in a good or a bad way would be unclear! It is horror after all! So both options are viable! The second season will delve deeper in moral choices! What do we have to sacrifice, but also how much must the individual sacrifice versus what would set more people slightly back! The price of gambling and guesses would extend way beyond a game of cards.

That is the anime I would make based on “Horror” and “Poker” ! Would you have an idea on how to make such an anime?! Do you have an idea (topic and genre) for my “create an anime” series? I have so much fun doing things like these! So I would really appreciate some suggestions! Either way! There is this shrouded black woman standing in front of my door and she keeps ringing the doorbell! I’ll go see what she wants! Stay random loyal subjects!

Revenge of the Ghost Pokémon Trainers Part 2

Sometimes you start a post and you can just ramble on because you really like the subject matter! That is what happened to me in my previous post! So here I will continue it. For Halloween I have been doing the ghost Pokémon trainer of canon a solid and I have been readjusting their team to fit their style! Yesterday we looked at Agatha, Morty and Phoebe and we established some rules. Today for all your basic info I refer you to the first post and we dive straight in as we re-evaluate Fantina, Shauntal, Accerolla and Allister.

Fantina

Fantina is all about style! She is one of the most classic Oujasamas/Himedere in Pokémon. A Hime-dere is a bratty spoiled princess archetype. In Pokémon Diamond and Pearl she is a very scary gym trainer because with an ace at level 36, she has a fully evolved team of ghosts pokémon! That is pretty scary. However, while her hair is someone who looks like a Drifblim, I just don’t see a fashion queen using this pokémon. She has a gengar.. which is all about shadows and darkness so is about as far away from what she is about as you can think and she has a Mismagius..which is the evolution of a very femine pokemon but turns into a witch.. which again would not be the image Fantina wants! Luckily I am here to rescue her!

Low Tier 1: Misdreavus

Let’s take her Ace away and turn it into its pre-evolved. This Pokémon is like it’s evolution based on a Banshee but is much more in the style of a pretty woman that wears some elegant jewelry. This jewelry that Misdreavus wears is super important in her lore as it is what keeps her alive. It stores the energy that Misdreavus uses as sustenance. A Pokémon that withers without looking it’s prettiest seems to go very well with the whole Diva vibe Fantina has going. It would also balance her out a bit, Mismagius and Gengar are very good sweepers and have a better special attack than most pokémon you can encounter before facing her. So stick with this one Fantina it suits you a lot better than it’s evolved form! Which we will pass on to another trainer on this list.

Low Tier 2: Sableye

Sableye is called the darkness pokémon and belongs to the Dark Ghost type. An Incredibly strong defensive typing with only one weakness. This weakness however only was given to it in the sixth generation. While of course for the nature of this list that weakness is still in effect, the Sinnoh region doesn’t have a lot of Fairy Types available.. not even of the ones that were given the typing later. Since we are taking Drifblim away Fantina needs a new defensive Pokémon and a ghost that is all about sparkling gems seems like a perfect fit for a Himedere. Gems Jewelry and elegance is the theme that goes with Fantina and this pokémon seems perfect for that. It will offer the trainer a nice obstacle to overcome in the form of a hard to counter typing. In the rematches this could even have it’s mega form so it is actually decent. Still since I semi-started my first Randomiser Nuzlocke and I got Scott the Sableye, I began to appreciate this pokemon a lot more and it is great for a mid game gym leader.

Mid Tier 1: Cursola

Pokémon fans like me really like to come up with the strangest theories. Are Agatha and Oak a couple, could everyone’s dad have died in a big pokémon war?! Is Cubone a slide evolution of a Kangaskhan cub?! So how about this one! Did Fantina kill a Corsola to get some jewelry and end up with a Galarian (Ghost Type) Corosola? Did she just hoard for Coral and cause it to die out cause Galarian Corsola to appear in the Sinnoh region as well?! However you look at it coral makes for some great jewelry at a pretty big price. Galarian Corsola is all about that and while we could give her another defensive type.. that strategy only really works if it holds an eviolite. Since gym trainers usually don’t use held items except for maybe a berry or so.. evolving it seems the most logical route for her team. Cursola isn’t as exceptional of an attacker as Fantina’s normal team either and while it is good still I think this is a much more balanced pick for a mid tier then Gengar.

Mid Tier 2: Oricorio Sensu

Fantina has style and flare, so having a ghostly dancer on her team makes more than enough sense to put this fan dancing bird on her team. With a lilac colouring scheme it isn’t even that far off from Fantina itself.. but that being said a lot of ghosts are purple and we actually took all of the most purple ones away! With Fantina’s team so far there is a lack of speed and Sensu Style Oricorio would fix that a bit. It would also give Fantina a wider moveset to use since the Oricorio’s can learn a bit of a wider moveset. Since the others really struggle against normal types. Fantina seems like the person who comes prepared for that. She does not want to lose face and stand no chance… she would stack the deck in her favor. The look of disdain on the Sensu Style Oricorio also fits Fantina quite nicely.

Ace : Froslass

Froslass is based on the Yuki-Onna Yokai and is a female only pokémon that is all about an elegant appearance but a cold personality. It is perfect for someone like Fantina. It works as a speedy revenge killer so if you are on your last Pokémon when Fantina sends out her Froslass you are going to have a bad time. The fact that this pokémon freezes it’s victims to death and then uses them as decoration might be a bit too evil for Fantina but the whole idea of using people as tools for yourself does fit in with the whole Himedere esthetic that woman has going. A hard hitting but fragile pokémon seems more fitting then her more defensive ghosts and with those witteling you down a bit it seems like this stone cold Killer ghost would truly be something that Fantina could use as a main.

Shauntal

By design Shauntal is probably my favourite Ghost Pokémon trainer, she reminds me a lot of Willow from Pokémon. An adorable slightly awkward geek that spends too much time in her books and as result comes across rather strange. Her sprite animations have a level of clunk to them as if she is really klutzy.. which endears her to much even more! Yet her team has always been odd. Golurk looks adorable on her in the comic but there is a lot you can do with her here. However they did not treat her as wrong as most other ghost trainers. For one I think we can keep her ace on the team.

Low Tier 1: Haunter

Now this one seems a bit of a weird one for Shauntal because in no way it fits her personality. Haunter is a bit of Poltergeist which has nothing to do with Shauntal’s intellectual plight and her studious nature. However Shauntal seems to be a Pokémon Trainer that isn’t always in control of her Pokémon. There is this sense that she is a bit of a submissive character and having a Pokémon by her side that constantly pranks her and tosses her books on the floor seems like something very “anime” to do with the character. She actually is a very good trainer, she is elite four after all.. but she can not seem to get rid of this thing. She probably has some sort of attachment to it, maybe even claiming it was the spirit of a lost relative or a friend who always bullied her. That is also why she can not evolve it since she doesn’t want to trade it away.

Low Tier 2: Lampent

Shauntal once again seems the least dominant personality of all the ghost trainers so it makes sense for her to have multiple guiding lights. Her poor eyesight and love for dark poorly lit places does help. Lampent would be that light that helps her down and up some ladders and function as her mobile light. While I would love for her to have a Litwick I can’t justify that on an Elite Four Member. She probably would have one as a pet.. that constantly drains her life force without knowing it but yes.. Shauntal would crawl up in dark corners and get her Lampent out so she can read more!

Mid Tier 1: Runerigus

In the official game Shauntal has a Cofagrigus and while that still makes a bit of sense the evolution of its Galarian form makes a lot more sense. This pokémon is based around ancient and mysterious symbols and an ancient wall of text. It also offers Shauntal the amazing ground type to add to her lineup to replace her less fitting Golurk. It is much easier to see Shauntal discover an ancient wall of text and wanting to bring that home and being super stoked when she discovers a cursed pokémon lives inside the text so she actually CAN bring it home, rather than see her catch an ancient stories high Golem and it using it Jet powered lags to fly her back home.. That latter looks super cute.. but she is a nerd! She probably would get sick or something! No stick to runes because knowledge is power.

Mid Tier 2: Mismagius

Mismagius is all about casting and chanting ancient spells and has that book knowledge vibe that Shauntal has as well. Mismagius also has a bit of a good nature but not always.. which seems to fit the Elite Four member quite well. She would usually be engaged with her own little activities like reading and not really caring about the world around her. However if she would stumble upon someone in need she seems like the type that tries to help but might make it worse. Mismagius can bless people but also can make them go insane or at least super fearful with their chanting. Just like how a socially awkward person can unnerve an extraverted person as well. Jeesz she is weird. Shauntal and Mismagius would make great friends.

Ace: Chandelure

I am at a toss up if Chandelure or Mismagius should have been her ace, but I feel Shauntal would spend more time with a Pokémon reading than she would do the whole chanting mystic stuff. Like I said I can easily imagine the girl with a litwick so perhaps when she was young she had one and kept staring at it feeding it her life energy until it evolved. Somehow this never killed her as she always kept struggling on wanting to finish her book and as it got more strength and evolved her Ace Chandelure would start to enjoy this odd woman’s company and her fascination with books. Since Chandelure has a dual typing and a wider moveset then Mismagius it also seems the better choice for an ace then the previous one on this list. It gives Shauntal a bit more chance to show off her intelligence by choosing some advanced strategies and calculations so yes this seems a great pick.. at least until we get an E-Book Rotom!

Acerola

By far the easiest trainer to create a theme for would be Acerola. This Trial Captain and Elite Four Member however is a bit hard to scale her in how she relates to everyone. Alola never had a league before so her skill isn’t that established plus she is a kid. That kid route is however the main hook we will take for her team! She is an orphan girl as well so she would probably desperately be looking for friends! Well look no further.

Low Tier Number 1: Sandygast

Alola is a beach region so playing in the sand is something a kid would very likely do! Especially such a wandering person like Acerola. It is not hard to see her making a sandcastle and talking to it, with people thinking it is an imaginary friend of a lonely kid but then one day she takes a pokéball and catches it with everyone being surprised. Acerola has that weird “would talk to inanimate objects” trait. She is odd and mysterious and very much a loner despite seeming to enjoy the company of others. One can easily imagine her going to the beach and be among other people , pretending they care for her.

Low Tier Number 2: Drifloon

With the risk of underpowering Acerola here.. (of course it would be a Drifblim in her Elite Four team) I can easily see her wandering about being held in the arms with a balloon. Now this Balloon is infamous for trying to drag children away into the afterlife. It would be a great allegory for the struggles Acerola has been through as an orphan and wandering child. It would also very much fit in the plaything estetic for her team. It could even enforce the story of loneliness upon her.. how she is playing with some kids and her drifloon and some worried mothers take their children away from the killer balloon.

Mid Tier 1: Polteageist

Yes she has some overlap with Agatha but a girl holding a tea party is a perfect way of playing. However Agatha would own an Antique Polteageist while Acerola would have a Counterfeit one.. and yes those are two separate forms. Acerola’s one also does not use stored power or such clever tactics it is there to giga drain and shadow ball. Even though it might not learn it officially I am deciding her one would have the move “Trick or Treat”.. which turns others into ghosts.. It seems like a tactic that Acerola would use in “join the fun” Of course she would need a couple of dolls to host her haunted tea parties.. luckily for us I got that covered.

Mid Tier 2: Banette

Banette is the spirit of a discarded toy that came to live to get revenge on the kid who discarded it. Acerola of course would not be the victim of that power but it does make sense for her to pick up a toy like this when wandering about. She is an orphan and from the looks of it she isn’t really in a home either.. at least not all the time so she would be short for money and short for childhood items. So it would make sense that she finds a discarded toy and claims it as her own. Now Banette might be whispering to her to be a trial captain to deal with ten years old who are possibly one that can help Banette put a needle through the head of that kid that discarded it.. it could also be more innocent. Acerola found Banette still full of spite but she gave it a loving new home as her doll! Having tea parties with new friends the Banette slowly found it’s way to it’s heart again! Either way this clearly is a great addition to Acerola’s team. That later might even be able to go mega.

Ace: Mimikyu

Of course Mimikyu needs to be on here as well, it is from her region, it is her totem pokémon and it is a Pokémon Acerola uses as well.. it makes perfect sense for this to be her ace. Like her it doesn’t have anybody like a family to love her.. and much like the other Pokémon in her team it has this “toy” like quality. While it is in fact a costume it has enough plushie estetic to join her tea parties. Mimikyu is also a lot more affectionate and could keep her safe from the “less kind” spirits on her team if there are any. A personal bodyguard of sorts she can carry around like a ragdoll. The ragdoll look works great with a poor little strange orphan girl that talks to her dolls and Mimikyu is a physical attacker unlike the rest of her team offering her some new diversity. She can use it in so many different ways and really can work as the best friend that she very much needs! A great Ace or Acerola.

Allister

Allister is a bit of an odd one here. Why .. because he is a version exclusive gym leader. His design is a lot cooler but he does not get the same popularity as Bea due to her charming episode of Pokémon Twilight wings. Allister hasn’t been really given that much flavor other than him being mostly “that creepy guy” Luckily that does make it very easy to build a team for him.

Low Tier 1: Yamask

This is a dead give away.. Alilisters trade mark is that he wears a mask. So Yamask would be a great pick for him to have as his first team member. Now Alilisters mask makes him look ghostly while the ghost carries a mask of their former human form. So there immediately is a great duality in this. I am not talking about the Galarian variant of course as only the Unovan variant carries a mask but it would make a great lead for Alistair. While not great in battle I imagine it functioning in a way similar to Morty’s original team that relied heavily on curse. Yamask looks at their mask and cries knowing they have died so them spreading a curse on the living seems quite in line with the behaviour of the boy and the very nature of this pokémon.

Low Tier 2: Gourgeist

Allister’s theme seems to resolve most about fear, above all the other ghost type gym leaders. So him slotting into the Halloween Pumpkin pokémon would make perfect sense. We do link that pumpkin lantern to fear so often and over time it has become an icon for scary stuff. Like Acerola this would give him access to moves that allow him to turn your entire team into ghosts which then can hit super effectively and that is a frightening scenario.It’s lore also says it loves to trick people and creep them out with scary songs. Allister while not a singer surely puts on a creepy act as well. A nice pair.

Mid Tier 1: Drakloak

Drakloak’s Final evolution Dragpult is scary as hell! Yet with it only being available after level 60 this Semi-legendary might be a bit out of the league of young Alistair. He is still a kid entering those awkward teen years. Drakloak is in a similar phase in it’s ghostly life span and besides that it also has a bit similar body language than Allistair does. It is a pokémon indigenous to his region too and given his young age , he should not have been able to travel that much! Perhaps this was the pokémon that got him started with his collection. Not really his starter.. but the second one.. after which he decided he would be a ghost Pokémon trainer and all! Plus lizards are always scary right?! His legendary of choice would without a doubt be Giratina so this is a mini version of it as well!

Mid tier 2: Gengar

One of the few doubles on this list but for good reason. Gengar is very much connected to the concept of fear, plus he is a prankster and shown to often be rather infantile. All these elements connect rather well with Alistair. I feel where Agatha would use the pokémon mostly for Shadowball and powerful special moves like Focus Blast, Allister would go a “creepier” route. He would focus on the poison element, teaching it toxic alongside Venoshock. That sense of an impending combo and a unescape poison seem in line with who he is. He isn’t a hard hitter.. more the guy that unnerves you and borrowing from Gengar’s poison element really works for that.

Ace: Spiritomb

This Pokémon is something I find one of the most fearful looking ghost in the entire game and thus I think it is a great choice for the masked boy. Formed out of 108 souls bound to an odd Keystone it has something ominous.. this isn’t just one ghost.. This is over 100 ghosts! It was also mischievous! Most Gym Leaders in the region also seem to have a weakness against one another, with a few options that protect against their greatest weakness. However until now we had not given Allister anything that can resist the dark type at all! This Pokémon is only weak to fairy and eats psychic Pokémon for breakfast.It displays the same otherworldly quality that Allister has to himself and I think it would be truly amazing to see Gigantamax or Mega Spirtomb! I have no doubts these two can work well of each other.. or drive each other to utter madness. Whichever it is this is one scary pair!

And with that we conclude this series of giving famous type trainers a themed team! What team do you support?! What would you like to see in a team?! Would you like to see this for trainers of others types? Let me know and I hope I showed plenty of ghosts! Boo!

Revenge of the Ghost Pokémon Trainers Part 1

Hello again Mortals! I already have run dry of creepy Pokémon Rom hacks.. I planned a review of Pokémon Dark.. for you all but this ended up being edgy dialogue in the first two towns and then reverting to a normal Pokémon Ruby run. Since I already did a ghost pokémon top 5 .. twice.. and talked about their pokédex entries a lot I needed a new angle! During the Pokémon Games we have encountered a lot of Ghost Pokémon Trainers.. but most of them have been odd! Either by the lack of ghosts in their respective generation. Everyone of these trainers has a clear theme going on in their appearance.. yet non have a theme matching that! Today we will fix that.. at least for the first three! With Part 2 coming the day after.

Rules

For this post I will give every trainer a team of five Pokémon. Most Elite 4 members run around with themes of that approximate size. Teams will never have doubles but previous forms of Pokémon are allowed. Each member will get two lower tier Pokémon, two mid tier pokémon and an ace. This doesn’t mean the High tier pokémon actually have to be Amazing or the low tier entries having to be bad monsters.. it all has to do with their respective level. I will not go in depth on movesets but will discuss their fighting style..which names some moves. For description of those moves, feel free to use google or ask me in the comments.

I will not take their original aces into account as that would give Agatha, Morty AND Allistair a Gengar as an ace. Usually aces have some overlap with their generation while in hindsight other pokémon are clearly better fits. This one is all about the air a trainer has. All will be placed around an Elite 4 ish level or “rematch” team level to have access to the widest amount of Pokémon. None of them have legendaries but since they have a sixth slot still available you can tell me what Legendaries they should have in their final party slot or something. I do not look at generations and more or less assume a timeline as if made as a present day remake. The type of ghost is more so determine in what kind of environment they would be in rather then their actual region.

Agatha

Agatha is the O.G. Ghost Pokémon trainer appearing in the first game and the many many remakes and rom hacks of Kanto. She is the one who least follows a theme and is just “the old ghost lady”. She is famous for her quote to tell people not to use the strongest pokémon but their favourites. Which might be an element we can use. So if we consider Agatha as a grumpy old lady.. who showcases using favourite pokemon and not just the strong I think this is the team we would get.

Low Tier 1: Sinistea

Obviously an old woman would drink a lot of tea in the world of stereotypical anime characters. So it would make sense for her to have the tea pokémon.. and yes the fact that she has the cup does indeed mean that the pot is higher on her team list but no one has just a teapot or just a teacup it’s kind of a set. I imagine Agatha’s elite four room having one of these cast iron bistro tables where she is sipping her tea and when a trainer steps in she taps her cane on the floor and the teacup comes flying to her aid. This is where she proclaims she is a ghost pokémon trainer and about the power of using your favourites. The teacup would then fly into battle as the match begins.

Low Tier 2: Shedinja

This Pokémon is famous for only having 1 hp , but the ability wonderguard, which only makes it take damage from super effective moves, hazards and status effects.. and weather. If you do not come prepared for a Shedinja though you will have a very bad time. I think Agatha would want that to be a lesson we learn! Always be prepared. Since Shedinja is a Bug and Ghost it would hard counter the Psychic type that Gengar is so known to be weak too, it is likely that a trainer would have such a pokémon because Bruno is the trainer they fight before. While Shedinja can be deemed a terrible Pokémon Agatha is all about making it work. It can fall very easily but if ill prepared you will suffer inevitable defeat. Almost like a lecture! I think that fits Agatha quite well.

Mid Tier 1: Gengar

The third Pokémon Agatha is likely to send out, unless the AI smartly swaps would be Gengar. It is the defining pokémon from her generation and the way she summons a Gengar from the shadow of her staff is too cool not to use. It might no longer be her ace because I think that is a bit too cliché it still fits her pretty well as a monster. Something that is almost as old as she is. She would not run it in any Mega form or Gigantamax form because she feels those new methods are poppycock.. revealing a bit of a Genwunner style of thinking would really fit with Agatha’s older mind thus justifying this Pokémon.

Mid Tier 2: Decidueye

I remember my dad’s aunt collecting owls, and it seems like a pretty grandma thing to do. I know a few old ladies that collect owl statues or even owl macrame and stuff like that, plus the whole theme of Wisdom applying to Agatha makes a lot of sense as well. We can even go further and explain that this archery owl pokemon has been based on an extinct and ancient owl that used to live on hawaii in some of it’s glory days before it was tainted by tourists etc. The old versus the new world is once again a theme that really can work with our old little lady trainer.

Ace: Polteageist

Obviously this Pokémon would be Agatha’s ace. Not only is it a perfect pokémon for an old lady, it also is VERY VERY powerful if used properly with stored power. So it fits for what is most likely the most powerful ghost trainer out there. It’s ability that will boost it’s stats when taking physical damage/decay is a perfect allegory for Agatha’s age as well. While her body withers her experience only makes her stronger and stronger.You can easily imagine the anime Brock going “That’s Polteageist ability Weak Armor, as it’s body crumples the spirit goes so much faster” and then Agatha saying “That is right.. just like me.. while my body crumbles my mind has already figured out what you will do next.. I will always be one step ahead of you”. Black tea is also her favourite flavour of tea.. so it really works out very well!

Morty

Morty is the “cool” guy of Pokémon trainers. He is fairly noble and caring for pokémon. He is engaged with the whole death at the burned tower and feels more like a guy who watches over the dead. So his team would have a few members that follow that theme a bit. He still is a bit bland and is by far my least favourite ghost trainer. He feels like he might have some things in common with Spark from the Pokémon Go memes, but instead of talking to an egg he still talks to the dead. Other than that.. he just is some blonde dude!

Low Tier 1: Phantump

Morty is the gym leader of Ecruteak city, which is near a fairly forested area. While it isn’t officially a forest he still lives fairly close to Ilex forest as well and seems like the type that would go pray at a shrine. So either if it is the woods in front of his town or the forest of Ilex he seems the wandering type. Phantump is the spirit of a boy or girl who got lost in the woods and starved to death. Being a sort of guardian figure of the dead it makes perfect sense if Morty picks one of these up and soft core uses it as his “Pikachu” but a bit weaker.
He seems like the type that would have a pokémon sitting on his shoulders to me at least and this would be the one! Of course it would not be a great member of his team but he can still annoy you with leech seed.

Low Tier 2: Doublade

While he doesn’t have that much flavour Morty does have a bit of that J-RPG protagonist look. Wandering into dangerous places to help the dead it seems like he should use a physical tool that allows him to fight with his pokémon. As to me he seems like the type that would do that. He misses the mystical qualities most of these ghost trainers have so his ghost team would most likely be focussed on a more physical approach. Not completely but still! We don’t have a lot to work with here! He does seem like the type he would be very friendly to his pokémon so I see him being very touchy and affectionate to his pokémon so it makes sense if he would litteraly carry as many of them with him as he possibly can.

Mid Tier 1: Golurk

While this pokémon officially belongs to Shauntall I never really saw the connection! It looked cute to see her fly one in the Manga but it is more of an opposites thing. With Morty however Golurk works like an ancient protector. Once again a physical attacker that is more straightforward than most ghost pokémon. Golurk is also one of the most good natured ghost pokémon out there being truly created as a protector and laborer and I think those are values that belong to Morty WAAAAAY more than they would ever do to Shauntal!

Mid Tier 2: Dusknoir

This one is mostly on the list because everyone seems to think this ghost pokémon is really cool looking and i have to agree! It is however a pretty worthless battler that has a horrible moveset… Which makes it perfect for Morty as he probably canonically is the weakest trainer of the lot. He is the fourth gym trainer which is only matched by Fantina.. but she as a trainer in the games has actually been hard! She is trying hard while Morty is more laid back. Dusknoir embodies this feeling quite a bit as it is not so much about attacking but more about out-stalling it’s opponent. Even better for Morty this Pokémon is said to take lost spirits in his body and guide them home! That does seem to fit Morty!

Ace: Rotom

This cheerful little pokémon seems like a perfect ace for Morty! It might be a bit mischievous but it is also quite the workhorse. It seems to have the right vibe for Morty trough and trough! Once again it seems like a spirit he can take care off. It could even be his gym puzzle. Where Rotom possesses all sorts of electrical appliances or electric doors and you have to make him jump to a new object to pass. Befriend a spirit and make it move on. It could be a fun way to tie in puzzles with the gym leader and the team.

Phoebe

Phoebe is the least spooky ghost trainer ever. When you see her you think you are facing a water pokémon trainer.. but no you already faced that in Ruby and Sapphire, even in Emerald. Maybe fire then as she is one of those Hawaiian Hula girls and Volcano’s and all? No Flannery took care of that. So how do we fix Phoebe?! Well it’s quite simple! Hawaiian Beach theme …for GHOSTS! Phoebe feels bright and bubbly! With a charismatic personality, a healthy skin colour and what must be a purple deficiency among ghost trainers it is time to do her right and give her a great team.

Low Tier 1: Pink/Female Frillish

There is a surprising amount of Pokémon that fit Phoebe like a glove! However not a single one stems from her generation! It would take two generations before there even came along a pokemon that even remotely fitted her. While once again the fact that I used a non fully evolved pokémon indicates that I indeed have taken its evolution as one of her squad as well and arguably the Blue Frillish would be better given her dress.. I chose the pink one because I do not like the evolution of the female version, while I do like the look of the male evolution. To give her a bit of diversity! Ghost Water isn’t an amazing typing so Phoebe probably is worse with this team than she was before it really does fit her like a glove. Aqua Jelly ghost! Just look at her! She even has a little pink element! And Frillish looks tropical enough to boot!

Low Tier 2: Dhelmise

While Dhelmise is not a low tier Pokémon but since it will get Gyro Ball we put this on the lower level themed slot so the speed difference is larger. Dhelmise being a ghost Anchor once again ties in with Phoebe’s all tropical theme..Perhaps she dives for shipwrecks and fights of pirate ghosts.. it seems like something she might do! Heck even if she just hunts for pearls at the bottom of the ocean her ghost pokémon can help her here. With Dhelmise helping her sink faster. It is a Ghost Grass type which means Phoebe will end up with a Fire, Water, Grass core making her seem like a somewhat justified Elite four member!

Mid Tier 1: Blue/Male Jellicent

Frillish evolution looks kinda strange in it’s male form but at least it does not have that weird lipstick mouth it’s evolution has. I do not mind Wobbuffet having that or even Jynx ..despite the questionable design ethics on her in general.. but a water pokémon having a puckered up lips sticky mouth seems wrong. It lives underwater.. and it’s a ghost! Why! I do not get it.. but hey Phoebe’s Dress is blue and that staple that female trainers can only use female pokémon in the game is outdated and should be taken out of the game anyway so now we have some incentives for that as well. I can imagine really cool visuals that part of her dress is the Jellisent slowly manifesting from it’s ectoplasmic shapes! We should make this happen! Now I need an animator who loves pokémon and works for free!

Mid Tier 2: Palossand

With a Ghost, Ground type that mimics a sandcastle I do not think I have to try hard to convince you it belongs to this girl, although it’s pre-evolution will be given to a trainer on the second half of this article. The ground typing gives Phoebe gives an answer to electric types and as a good Elite 4 member you should have a varied mix of secondary typings to make your opponent sweat! Where Agatha focusses a bit on mixed strategy with a bias on good special attack, Morty focusses on Bulk and Physical attack, Phoebe even more so seems like the defensive ghost type specialist. This makes her a great early elite four member because her role is not persé to win but to burn you out of resources, something that seems like a nice little challenge for a second elite four member. Palossand is an embodiment of that role as well as it fits her quite well.

Ace: Alolan Marowak

Phoebe at least to me has a dancer estetic, it seems like she might have been born in the Alola region given her dress style and more pigmented skin fit the location quite well. So it seems to me that giving her the fire dancer pokémon that also happens to be a ghost type is the perfect fit for her ace. I could easily see them dancing together. Like Morty, Phoebe seems one of the better and more socially natured ghost type users so it also makes sense that she would get a good guy or girl ghost as her ace. While most Gym Leaders are good natured with phoebe it seems a bit more a dominant trait. At least when we compare her to Allister, Shauntal and Fantina even compared to Accerolla. Fantina is flashy and cocky, while Shauntal is more an egghead and a slight clutz. Accerolla is more of a child and Allister is just creepy. Phoebe seems much more the type that rescues lost animals on her island or fights pokémon poachers or something. You know.. the main character’s female friend from one of those ecological awareness cartoons of the early 90’s. Alolan Marowak is easy to unify with that.

Tomorrow we will finish up this list with Fantina, Shauntal, Acerola and Allistair! What is your favourite team so far? The day this post goes up live I am still in the mid of a move so I might be slow in replying to your comments! do not let that stop you though! Speaking of not stopping I could always use more money to help me move! If you have some money you do not seem to be using, consider supporting my Kofi! I thank you all and have a good fright night!

Pinkie’s Scary Real Life Stories

Greetings Victims who dwell on my island!! This post should come to you at the first of October. This month Pinkie’s Paradise will be transformed into Pinkie’s Spooky Scary Paradise, with lots of Halloween content to come! Such as spooky games, scary anime , horror movies and ghost stories! You will see the scariest shades of Pink and encounter creepy coconuts! To get this Halloween month started I will tell you about my close encounters with the strange of any kind.

The ghost at the Graveyard

Let’s begin with the story I told already during a few blog posts but in a bit greater detail. This happened about 8 years ago. I had moved in with a person who was very open to the supernatural. We decided to move into a bigger place in a quiet sleepy town. We found a lovely apartment that was next to a gas station and a graveyard. Besides for our 5 neighbours there wasn’t anyone around for a fair bit. There were plenty of stairs but since the house was so old the stairs were very narrow and with a very small turn.. there was no way you could move anything up through those stairs. So as a result we had to move stuff through the graveyard always. Everyone on the upstairs floors did and there was this direct path to a big window that almost was like a door towards our actual floor. From it you could overlook 80% of the graveyard with only two corners far in the back hidden behind some trees and shrubbery. I never really wandered across the Graveyard as it always made me feel a bit uneasy. It felt like something private.

A few days after we moved in I was enjoying our super deluxe shower and arguably I might have showered too long and too hot..but it felt super amazing! We had a radio in there and this deluxe massage nozzle and all sorts of luxuries. I got dressed and walked out of the room realising I forgot my phone.. When I switched on the light I saw a ginger haired main with a Khaki blouse and some sort of navy woolen vest around it. His pants also had a sand like shade. He had a face that looks a bit like Escanor from the Seven Deadly Sins.. a bit of a inbetween of his smaller face and the bulkier one. If someone was more down on his luck and maybe a bit scruffier, but for an example think that guy. Just less anime. I nearly tripped over our dog, a brown labrador..so spammers good on you I had a Lab indeed. The dog stared at the spot where I just saw the man and barked at it. I first assumed it was because I spooked him by nearly tripping over him but he held on the space for a while. When I looked he was gone again and I figured at first, I must have showered too long. That night I told my then partner that I saw a man in the bathroom and I was told they saw something as well. The description they used was Irish looking male, about the age of my dad, maybe slightly younger. The wore some sort of military uniform but woar something like a coat over it. .. more like a “bodywarmer” And I realised that could be the same guy.

Now my ex was good at staging these things. They had this Münchausen by Proxy like tendencies which resulted in them sometimes testing medicine on me to trigger a response they could call the doctor for. (Which I did not know what the time but I had my suspicion)
I never had allergic reactions before but once we were together, I had a lot of stuff happen to me. The suspicion made me put it away as some sort of trick for a bit. But then spring came and we would get some new furniture.. I believe it was a Matras for our bed couch, but I am not sure anymore. Due to a giant rainshower there was a huge puddle of mud on our regular path to the graveyard so me and a friend helping me drag the item in decided to walk around. Into one of the corners of the graveyard and there I saw the grave of “Escanor” clear as day the same man was depicted in the photo on the graveyard. Clear as day.

After I began to believe and open my mind a bit more I saw more and more people in our house. Escanor was there but I also remember a woman in a very old timey dress. She would be much closer in my aura and atmosphere “Escanor was” .. usually sneaking up to me when I was looking in the mirror or around corners. Always having a nasty expression on her face. One time I remember my ex going to their parents and me staying behind due some responsibilities. I saw her again. She spooked me..so I called the dog to the bedroom! Wanting that he slept with me that night.. but the dog for some reason did not dare to pass the hallway where I just saw her. He did not bark.. he just refused to set foot there. A few days later I decided to do a cleaning ceremony for the house and the dog dared to walk in the hallway again. Soon after I was kicked out by my ex for refusing to fail a test to get myself branded as an Autistic person so we could get extra benefits. I stopped seeing ghosts.. but I never stopped “sensing” shifts around me.

The Demon in my legs

That same ex was always a very religious person, usually diving in the more cultist side of christianity.. you know with those miracle healing priests and churches that you need to pay for to be a part of. I am not religious. I do not believe in a christian god, I do believe in the supernatural.. to an extent but I do not believe in the christian definition of god. I believe in order and chaos and karma and energies and memories but no man is in control. I hated … no I despised how every religious person she got in the house tried to convert me. I made it clear to them I did not want to convert. The first guy I politely asked to stop and he gave me an “easier” to read bible to see if I would change my mind. I gave it back to him and told him I was not interested. He said keep I have plenty, if you do not want to read it that is fine to each their own. The second guy.. was a guy from the salvation army. He pushed harder and I said I was not interested. He told me that if I wanted a serious relationship I had to accept god. I told him that was untrue , my partner had a choice on who to accept and if their god would wish me to stay alone for not following his word I would not want to follow that god either way. I told him please do not convert me, I am not open to it. He gave me a real bible and commanded me to read some passages before he returned to my partner next week. Or that I would regret my life choices soon enough.

I did not take kindly to that, I told him I would not and he told me .. if I did not they would not allow my partner to do charity work. I either had to do what he said or my partner would suffer. So… I kicked him out of our place. I told him I would stay clear from them as long as they were around and go walk the dog.. but I would never convert.. either he could tolerate that and let my partner do what they were passionate about or I would expose him for the shallow person he is. He accepted the.. let’s not meet deal. Eventually though he turned out to also be a huge racist and my partner ended up kicking him out as well.. but the rule that whenever they had christian friends over I would vanish would remain until the end of our relationship. One day in that new house a massive thunderstorm forced me to come home earlier. This new priest saw me.. and he told me “You have a demon inside of you”.

Of course the way to get rid of this devil was to pay to join their church so he could heal me! I said no and he said that it was the demon resisting. I asked him to drop it when he asked his friends to hold me.. as he took off my shoes. He began blessing my feet.. touching them.. while the other guys pinned me to the couch! To weaken the demon! I panicked and cried a bit.It’s rather scary to be held by religious nuts trying to exorcise your personality. They stopped and told me if I wanted to be truly free of my demon for only so many euros a month I could be clean and one of god’s children again. I was super upset! I felt attacked..so I said to them that if God does make them do this kind of thing I was more fond of the demon. I walked out the house and walked for about an hour in the thunderstorm. Not wanting to see them again. My ex apologised for what happend but did wonder if I had an actual demon in my legs and feet. I had always been motorically awkward and my disease made that worse.. perhaps it was not a disease it was a demon.

This might have been slightly over dramatised..but still pretty close to how I felt!

Eight years later, I am both rid of the ex as any religious zealotry when A Jehova’s Witness knocks on my door. They told me evolution was a lie, and asked me if I had embraced god. I politely told them I was not interested but he told me to read a flyer about the hoax of evolution and told me he would come back next week. I told him please don’t bother me.. and he said I had interesting religious beliefs and he thought god could help.. he would be back next week. I asked him once more not to do so or I would truly tell him what I felt and he said he would like it if I did that. So I did my research on their scientist and found he had been discredited on several accounts. I printed it out as evidence, and basically wrote a 20 page essay on what was wrong with that flyer. Which was everything. He came back and I warned him and said I came prepared and he would not like it and he best just move.. but he insisted thinking he could turn me into a believer. We had our discussion and I properly silenced him.. he thanked me for looking into it so much and thanked me for not only using science but also my beliefs. He told me god was in my heart even if I could not accept him as god….. then he took a pause.. and said… but there is something evil living in your legs.

Melanie

The final story I would like to share with you is a ghost-story about my current apartment My next door neighbour had recently commited suicide when I began to notice a sensation I had not felt for a while. I felt presences in my apartment. Some good, some very disturbing. At first I thought it was just another case of sleep Paralysis. Since I had a non grounded power outlet right where my bed was at I figured that it might even leak some electromagnetic energy causing my senses to go a bit haywire. Yet as time passed on I began to detect “trends” in the energies I felt. The evil energy always stared at me from behind my modular cube cabinet that separates my bed from. Yet there was another presence that felt more.. positive. It would be on my bed, usually very close besides me. Unlike in the old home I could not really “see” a presence but I knew this energy felt “feminine and fragile’ almost as afraid as I could be towards the more “evil” feeling energy. Close to the experience of sleep paralysis but I could move and it did not feel “as inevitably evil”

At times I had a sensation of movement, like as if they took my hand to hold it. So as a form of Ouja I decided to ask them questions while holding a pencil and asking them to do that again to make me write. I asked them a few questions and asked them for horizontal lines for yes and vertical for no.. as i felt that was very possible.. but when I was done.. there were no lines.. I had written down the word Melanie (last name) . I looked up the name and could not discover much at first but then it seemed to link to the family of a miner who lived here.
The surname of Melanie was “de geest’ which is dutch for The Ghost. So I thought I had a brainfart at first and subconsciously just wrote that. Yet after I found out a familie “De Geest” had actually lived in the area as miners things became more intriguing. I sensed Melanie’s energy around more and more. Yet it also began to feel ..creepier. More in a stalkerish way.

I would ask her questions and I would experience an energy of sorts that would usually cue me into what here state would be. Then one day I asked her to leave me alone.. I did not want anyone in my aura, not even Melanie. I felt Anger and got so uncomfy I ditched my nap and went to the grocery store. Usually if I want away for a bit and come back the energies are gone. However when I came back two paintings had fallen off the wall. One painting’s screw seems to have snapped out of nowhere. Well out of nowhere is a big word. Above me lives a druggy gamer who if he loses loves to toss around furniture and I feel my entire apartment vibrate so one could figure my upstairs neighbour broke it with all the rage over time.. yet the second one has one of those old timey rope things.. and the rope had became completely unhooked. This one had a picture of me on it.. along with some coworkers.. and the painting fell exactly so that where I landed at the edge of my bed. Leaving the slightest of cracks in the glass just at my face.

A few nights later I had a dream of Melanie, telling me it was nice to finally meet me. She told me she had fallen in love with me and wanted us to be together. I told her in the dream I kinda preferred an alive girl or the world would think I am even crazier. She said that if we would be together I should not be alive. She asked me to take my own life so we could be together. I woke up from the dream and the idea crossed my mind for a split second to actually harm myself and I felt all warm and fuzzy. I then shook off the thought and said in the room I could not and I never spoke to the presence again. Every so often in my house I now feel as if someone is cursing or yelling at me.. but no more paintings became undone but the place does feel a bit more evil now with those thoughts sporadically popping up in my dreams. I will not listen and soon I won’t even be here!.. However a funny thing occurred..since I started writing about Melanie.. in this apartment it feels as if the temperature next to me has dropped a few degrees.

And those are my strangest encounters, there are a few more but these are the most powerful ones. I do not claim these stories are real, in fact all stories can be explained …probably by rational ideas. Such as taking to long of a hot shower, just being taking advantage of by a church or coping with some feelings down and somber and it manifesting as a third party as I really refuse to have these thoughts myself?! Making myself crazy with ghost fantasies maybe?! Who knows! Maybe some things are real. All I know is that these are definitely the moments that I crossed into the twilight zone if there is such a thing! Do you have any ghost stories?! Let me know in the comments! For Halloween we slightly new look check it out on the main page if you are reading this in reader!