Pokemon Lolcows

[Android raptor]

Eh, the hurricane thing was more "lolwut" than it was laugh-out funny. I can actually kind of see the logic she was using, it's just shit came out hella wrong and it kind of blew up. I don't think she was trying to be malicious or anything, moreso she legitimately didn't understand the situation fully. Then again I'm also sperg and her friend so...

Regardless I've seen far, FAR worse things happen in fandom (even in my main fandom, which is somewhat mild by fandom standards. I've gotten death wishes for liking certain characters, not to mention this one forum that gradually degraded into a police state thanks to a certain admin). And hell, in my mind the best Pokemon lolcows (other than Chris) will always be Cori Falls and KojirouJames or whatever his name was (that one creepy middle-aged Jessie crossplayer).

ANYWAY, the fic in question is actually this thing. Highlights include the Sue getting an Entei within the first five minutes, becoming "the fire princess of Johto" with an all-fire team (including a gold Charizard twice the size of a normal Charizard) who also has wings made of fire, ice, and lightning (no idea how that's supposed to work), and one of the most hilariously unfortunate sex scenes I've ever read (seriously her attempts at purple prose just made it sound like the Sue was giving Jiri an STD more than anything else).

 

[Himawari]

I wish I could talk about half the spergiest stuff I've seen in Pokemon fandom, but unfortunately most of it occurred behind the scenes among fansite administration and I'm kind of bound by an unspoken confidentiality agreement. (seriously, being the head honcho of a major Pokemon fansite is an almost guaranteed method to becoming a lolcow.)

But I can tell you about an encounter I had with Joe Merrick (aka Serebii).

So one time I wrote up a news article for the fansite I worked for. Said article was about a Nintendo console, not specifically Pokemon news, but still within our scope. Joe comes swooping in attacking me for writing a garbage article with no sources (it had sources) and blasting us for publishing something "irrelevant" about Nintendo but refusing to post any articles about the unconfirmed Pokemon news that his exclusive secret source said was real (Joe later got a C&D letter from Big N for posting about it).

Keep in mind that this was not even his own website.

I basically told him to screw off.

Also shit like this has happened:

Friend who I rarely get to see and happens to run a Pokemon fansite: Hey since you're in the area and I have time available for once we can hang out tonight.
Me: Ok cool!
Friend: Scratch that, Joe's raging at me because some kid on the site stole something from his site, so I'm gonna have to stay in.
Me: omfg tell him to die in a ditch
Friend: I can't do that.
Me: Tell him you're too busy to deal with his bullshit because you're gonna spend a lovely night out with a gorgeous lady, he'll be so mad.
Friend: That's a lie though.

(we ended up hanging out anyway but seriously, Joe's a bitch.)

He's also been known to mess with the timecodes on his news articles so that it will always look like he's been the first one to report on any sort of major announcement.

That one time when Black and White was announced and Joe slept through it for so long that he couldn't pull that trick without everyone and their mom noticing? Priceless.

 

[Android raptor]

Oh man, I've heard both him and the head of Bulbagarden are terrible (and hate each other too). It's a franchise about cute colorful fighting monsters for kids folks, not serious business.

That said, Joe's antics sound a lot like some of the crap that's gone down in my aforementioned other fandom btw (Gundam in case anyone care. I'm especially having violent flashbacks to a forum known as Gundamwatch that was slowly turned into a police state by the admin, though less extreme versions of that kind of behavior are pretty common throughout the fandom).

 

[Himawari]

Liam (Bulbagarden) is a pretty decent guy, definitely has not rubbed me the wrong way like Joe has. He can get pretty srs bsns over bizarre stuff though, and yeah, when it comes to his bitter rivalry with Joe he can kind of lose sight of some things, but more in the manner of waxing overly pretentious than throwing shitfits. Overall I don't think he's nearly as bad; he at least maintains a more professional image from what I've seen.

Though, keep in mind that the fandom is largely split between the Bulbagarden side and the Serebii side, and I tend to lean toward the Bulba side, so I have to admit to bias.

EDIT: Lemme break it down this way. I think most of you guys know that I'm pretty fluent in Japanese. I've done some translation work for the three big fansites in the past, usually by their request (the time for Serebii was because he's constantly doing vanity searches on Twitter and butted in on a conversation I had with someone unrelated about a mistranslation on his site that was causing fandom turmoil).

This is how they've tended to gone.

Joe (Serebii): Edits his news post to state that there's a POSSIBILITY that his previous statement might have been incorrect (but doesn't draw any attention to the edit, letting the misinformation continue to spread externally, because god forbid he actively admit he was wrong).
Jon (PokeBeach): Doesn't like the information that my translation tells him, so he decides I'm wrong. (After deliberately seeking me out to translate for him!)
Liam (Bulbagarden): Trusts my skills completely; voices any doubts in a respectful manner.

So that's kind of what largely shapes my opinions of them.

Jon is a complete tool, btw.

 

[Android raptor]

Ah, I was just going by what I'd heard. Sorry.

Who knew running sites about cute children's monsters was such serious business?

I'm curious, do Joe or any of the other shitty admins/mods have chat sessions where they shit talk various forum members behind their backs? And like, not shitty ones or lolcow ones, just fairly average ones? I ask because I know that was a thing the Gundamwatch admins and mods liked to do (so says a former mod).

 

[MysticMisty]

Isn't Jon the one who bragged about taking video/pictures from inside a Japanese movie theatre during one of the Pokemon movies, despite the risk of prison time if caught? Or am I thinking of someone else?

 

[Silver]

http://happypants3.deviantart.com/art/Gotta-cache-em-all-386063387

This is a Pokémon fan's interpretation of some of the more big-name Pokémon fansites as people (my loyalties lie with Butterfree/Dragonfree and The Cave of Dragonflies, as well as veekun, personally). I have never liked Serebii (in part due to the fact that the site is unerringly wrong about a bunch of shit and it's been that way for years - as a Mystery Dungeon fan I noticed that the first games' page is full of tons of bullshit, and Butterfree noticed some hilariously obvious signs of find + replace on the Pokémon Conquest page) and just doesn't give a shit. I really just can't stand things like that, especially not from what's supposed to be the "best" Pokémon site around. A few of my fellow TCoD members frequent various IRC channels and one of them pointed out that Serebii himself's quitting quote on #bulbagarden is literally "Owner of the best Pokémon site!" or some shit like that and it's just like @_@ you do realize that for instance your page on IVs had incorrect math for YEARS which you tried to pass off as "the formula has divergence" or some shit and it's like then it's not a damn working formula you just did the math wrong and BUTTERFREE EVEN TRIED TO EXPLAIN THAT but you didn't change it for a damn long time

Also:

Oh man, it wasn't "gratest pokemon master" was it? I'm assuming you're talking about something else, but "gratest" was just so... well, grate.

A friend of mine is actually in friendly communications with the author of that as a fellow troll fic writer.

 

[guau]

Isn't Jon the one who bragged about taking video/pictures from inside a Japanese movie theatre during one of the Pokemon movies, despite the risk of prison time if caught? Or am I thinking of someone else?

I think that was the pokejungle guy but i could be wrong.

I'm glad BJR has come to her senses now, because back in the day she was a huge pain in the ass for everyone in the Pokemon LJ community (to the point where Gin was afraid to ban her), she did leave a funny comment on my friends DA submission about aspergers syndrome that makes me lol to this day.

 

[Anonimo]

I wish I could talk about half the spergiest stuff I've seen in Pokemon fandom, but unfortunately most of it occurred behind the scenes among fansite administration and I'm kind of bound by an unspoken confidentiality agreement. (seriously, being the head honcho of a major Pokemon fansite is an almost guaranteed method to becoming a lolcow.)

I don't consider it a means to becoming a lolcow since you seem to be handling the whole " with great power, comes great responsibility" thing pretty well by the sound of it. If you were an admin who was always using anything you could to assert your superiority and rage when someone questions your actions, then I'd say there's lolcow potential. While I have heard some members are quick to latch on to certain traits and immediately scream "lolcow", generally. I don't think being part of a fansite or even being head honcho of one does not a lolcow make. I like to think that most of us here are well past that phase of "hahahaha u like dis u are so weird I m bettr than u lololol!" Usually, interests are not usually the main focus of a lolcow, but how the go about them(I direct you to Sonic fans like KingMasterReview or CWC).

 

[Silver]

Oh, speaking of Pokémon lolcows. I've been a member of The Cave of Dragonflies forums since about 2005 (and used to basically be a lolcow in my own right due to a terrible sense of superiority after having my ass kissed at the TR'sRockin! forums a lot) and there's this one guy who's now like 20 or 21 or something but from like 2004-2012 he made accounts at TCoD despite being banned at least twenty times and a lot of times they were a means to yell at capitalism and post his shitty fanfiction which often combined at least two of the following elements: Pokémon, Digimon, Power Rangers, and Star Fox. We called him Turbo 'cause one of his earliest and longest-lasting accounts was "t3h Turb0nat0r" or something similar to that.

But he posted his fanfiction. Not just at TCoD, but also at the Bulbagarden forums (which I'm not a member of, but) and likely at other fansites as well. But I made a point to save the links of all the ones I came across.

http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/f227/eric-daimons-quest-pokemon-keyblade-revenge-pg-13-a-24090/ - Pokemon, A Keyblade, & Revenge
http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/f227/eric-daimons-quest-dominos-vengeance-pg-13-a-25146/ - Domino's Vengeance
http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/f227/digimon-heroes-sequel-digimon-frontier-*one-my-better-fics*-26510/ - Digimon Heroes
http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/f227/how-eric-daimon-peggy-nohrstein-met-26729/ - How Eric and Peggy Met
http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/f227/eric-damon-chronicles-part-one-feral-girl-sinnoh-29192/ - The Feral Girl of Sinnoh
http://forums.dragonflycave.com/showthread.php?t=420 - Digimon Live Action Movie Fanfic
http://forums.dragonflycave.com/showthread.php?t=1145 - Star Fox vs Star Wolf vs Star Jackal
http://forums.dragonflycave.com/showthread.php?t=3056 - Script for a Live-Action Digimon Movie Trilogy
http://forums.dragonflycave.com/showthread.php?t=3441 - SSBB: Tabuu's Revenge
http://forums.dragonflycave.com/showthread.php?t=3605 - Digimon Data Squad II
http://forums.dragonflycave.com/showthread.php?t=4660 - Super Poke-Legendary Rangers
http://forums.dragonflycave.com/showthread.php?t=5267 - Eric Damon Chronicles: The Feral Girl of Sinnoh
http://forums.dragonflycave.com/showthread.php?t=5578 - Digimon Legends
http://forums.dragonflycave.com/showthread.php?t=5777 - Eric Damon Chronicles: Giovanni's Downfall
http://forums.dragonflycave.com/showthread.php?t=13247 - Digimon Heroes
http://forums.dragonflycave.com/showthread.php?t=13515 - Unnamed KH fic
http://forums.dragonflycave.com/showthread.php?t=14444 - Hanran Sentai JohtoRanger

 

[The Dude]

Gotta sperg 'em all.

Also, Pokemon is all Ash's coma dream. When he got struck by lightning he got put into a coma and that's why all the police officers and nurses are the same, because they were the last people he saw before going into the coma. It's also why no matter how many badges he wins whenever he goes to a new place no one has ever heard of him.

 

[Himawari]

Jon was indeed the one behind that Japanese theatre debacle. One of the stupidest things I've ever seen. I think I was actually the one who discovered the "let's get this moron sent to jail" thread on 2ch at the time.

 

[MysticMisty]

and it's just like @_@ you do realize that for instance your page on IVs had incorrect math for YEARS which you tried to pass off as "the formula has divergence" or some shit and it's like then it's not a damn working formula you just did the math wrong and BUTTERFREE EVEN TRIED TO EXPLAIN THAT but you didn't change it for a damn long time

Oh, yeah, I remember when the IV formula was wrong. My ex was trying to calculate IVs in an attempt to figure out what a Pokemon's Hidden Power type will be because he kept seeing it recommended and wanted to try it out. He became pretty pissed off when the predicted type was not the actual type every single time and has sworn off trying to use Hidden Power. He still uses the site though.

 

[Drawets Rednaxela]

I'm glad BJR has come to her senses now, because back in the day she was a huge pain in the ass for everyone in the Pokemon LJ community (to the point where Gin was afraid to ban her), she did leave a funny comment on my friends DA submission about aspergers syndrome that makes me lol to this day.

I like Gin from Sunnyshore. She's super nice. Even when I mistook her for a boy.

 

[Silver]

Oh, yeah, I remember when the IV formula was wrong. My ex was trying to calculate IVs in an attempt to figure out what a Pokemon's Hidden Power type will be because he kept seeing it recommended and wanted to try it out. He became pretty pissed off when the predicted type was not the actual type every single time and has sworn off trying to use Hidden Power. He still uses the site though.

This is an excerpt from messages I exchanged with Butterfree/Dragonfree about her attempts to contact Serebii and the mathematics mistake he made with the formula:

"If that weren't the case - if it actually could give a result that was that off compared to reality - then it would be a wildly useless formula and nobody should use it ever. So the section fails fatally on two different levels: first, he did the math wrong and concluded the formula was more inaccurate than it was, and second, after concluding that the formula was actually ridiculously inaccurate to the point of uselessness, he still sent the page to Serebii and Serebii still put it up on the site. And Serebii hasn't fixed it even though I personally reported the error, explaining exactly where it went wrong and what the rest of the calculation would look like if done correctly."

(oh okay someone else did the formula but still)

 

[Pine Tar]

So, Children's video games are serious business?

 

[Android raptor]

Pretty much.

Ah man, I wish I could talk more about all the nonsense and stupid bullshit that's gone on in the Gundam fandom over the years since that's the fandom I have the most experience in, but I don't want to drag this thread off topic. Perhaps a more general non-Pokemon fandom lolcows thread is in order?

ANYWAY, I forgot specific names but I know there's at least a few Pokemon fans on tumblr who are also SJWs since they get into it with BJR and I a lot. I remember one that completely lost her shit at BJR for pointing out that racism and homophobia/transphobia weren't the only types of discrimination. I think she was that girl who writes a bunch of graphic Ghetsis/N stuff, but don't quote me on that.

 

[broilerrx]

So, Children's video games are serious business?

Just look at the Smogfags.

But in all honesty, anyone here RP Pokemon? There was one that stuck out from me, this one girl that registered on Torrenta back when the current admin took the helm. Her handle was Salmane. I'd link you to some of her stuff, but an account is required to see most of the shit there, especially the good stuff. Though she was banned long ago (and tried to shitsmear Torrenta in retaliation), one thread has made history on what not to do there, especially since several people, including myself, tried to warn her that she made an invalid request, though the admin took the lab himself, and used the request to fuck with her.

But in terms of RPing out Pokemon and such, anyone run into any lolcows? I've heard of some in Torrenta's past, though I don't have too many details.

 

[GV 002]

Kolink, the guy who runs Pokefarm, is a proper nobjockey.

He's a spergy twentysomething Brit uni student with an unhealthy fixation on 'Shinx' and a really bad case of unwarranted self importance. His 'girlfriend' Wolfin is also an admin, and they had this nasty pokesex fanfic with their self inserts as an ongoing open thread that is plain for everyone to see. It's hideous.

I made an account there once for a giggle (bit of an in-joke between me and my friends at the time) and ended up lambasting him for being a dickhead, let's see if I can find some nuggets...

Well, my account still stands, the arseholish PMs from admins are still there but their content's context is lost due to my forum posts being long deleted. There's quite a lot of babble through my PMs about being an 'ignorant human' which is pretty funny, and the admins getting offended because I referred to them as 'sir' instead of 'proud female bitch wolf' or whatever.

I think, from what I remember (this was over three years ago mind) things escalated between me and Kolink when he tried to convince me that his life has been hard and 'suckish' and that he spent years memorizing the contents of a biology textbook about reproduction due to being overly sadface. No, it didn't make sense to me, either. He's a whiny, selfish little shitbox who can't cope unless he gets constant arsepats.

Here is the lovely subforum for pokesex RPing, bearing in mind that Kolink stresses that the entire site is PG13 - http://old.pokefarm.org/forum_forum?fid=38
A sweet little blog about what goes on behind the scenes at Pokefarm. Basically Kolink is a money grabbing prick and Wolfin is a cow. The comments in these posts are the best bit, they're hilarious - http://lulzyfarm.wordpress.com/

 

[Zenotwapal]

I used to frequent Serebii up until April/May of this year. It was the first forum I joined. Upon branching out to other forums a few years ago, I started to realize how bad nearly the entire user-base was. Nearly 70% of the forum is full of preteens yelling and screaming about pokemon. the other 29.95% was full of adults who acted like the rest of the children on the forum or took themselves far too seriously. There wasn't very many people on that forum I could hold a conversation with outside of pokemon.
A few things about my experience there:
If there's one thing you can NEVER talk about in a positive light on practically all pokemon sites/forums is cheating/hacking or emulation. Personally I don't really mind that, since I don't bother to use AR/Gameshark myself, but entirety of Serebii took it to a whole new level. The IRC channel for the site had scripts that would instantly ban and kick anyone who typed out any of these words: "AR, Gameshark, Pokesav (popular pokemon generator), emulators, ROM(s), etc etc". Not only that, if you did hack your pokeymans, you're a EVIL, VILE person!
The webmaster of Serebii, who is commonly referred to as "Serebii Joe" or just Joe on the forums, perpetuates this sort of behavior. He's a total elitist when it comes to his site and philosophy on a fucking child's game. He's 26 years old and has the mentality of his site's demographic when it comes to playing video games and how to play them. And I'm sure this has been stated before, but he boldly proclaims that he runs and maintains the "BEST pokemon fansite on the web!" His user-base believes him, too! You cannot talk about any other fansite on the forums/chatrooms (ESPECIALLY Bulbapedia, oh man will they sperg over that).
Might I add, the shipping section of the forum is pretty large. Oh and this little gem from way back when:
http://www.serebiiforums.com/showth...ia-Club-%28Contains-PG-13-rated-discussion%29

As for specific people, there was one guy in my time on those forums that stuck out. His username was Dattebayo. He was older than 20 I think, and constantly hit on teen girls and shit on the forums. He was a big shipper. Self proclaimed "highly functioning" autistic, might I add. When he got banned he made a big deal about it; made several alts and shitposted all over the place. I'd go through and dig up some of his stuff (this was all a few years ago), but the mods cleaned house and got rid of all of his threads.