So.. My school therapist asked me to make a drawing for him with a character from n25 since he used to play pjsk before, so I lowkey had to spend like 5 hours to make ts💔(worth it tho)
This is a kinda old drawing, but I still wanted to post it
you ever think about how steven kissing his keystone started as a way for him to reinforce a charming champion sort of act and it stuck or is that just me reading too deeply into things and he really just wants to give his pretty rock a smooch
A little intro since it's the first post of this category!
So, what's "Daigonology"? Daigo is just the japanese name of my favorite character, Steven Stone from Pokémon. Therefore, Daigonology is going to be... a series of posts in which I share the (unnecessary detailed) knowledge I accumulated about the character. Some might be more personal opinions which can be definitely argued upon (POLITELY, please, or I'll match your energy no doubt), others might be more objective. Either way, I hope they will be fun for fans of the character.
Since Tumblr allows me to easily write entries, I'll start by writing the posts here out of order and as things come to my mind; but I hope in the future I can actually tidy everything up and stash it on my personal website in a more orderly fashion.
In this first post, I will tackle the "catchphrase" we associate him with:
"When it comes down to it, I'm just the strongest there is right now."
Where does it first appear? In the Ruby/Sapphire games, it's just a phrase in his... personal bio on the Pokénav?
(yep I'm Italian, and yep I was playing on real hardware so have this crunchy photo instead of a tidy and clean screenshot </3)
Translating in English:
STRATEGY: Hit the weak point.
POKéMON: The great STEEL POKéMON!
INTRODUCTION: When things get serious, I'm still the strongest!
It's not exactly word-for-word what the English text was, but the meaning is largely the same in EN RS. This 'bio' was slightly modified in ORAS into:
So, basically a rewording with no major modifications in meaning, which is the one that stuck with us up to this day (ORAS Steven, for all concerns, retconned the original despite explicitly being an AU version of the character).
Why am I discussing this apparently inconsequential thing? Simply because... TPCI transformed this phrase into his "catchphrase". Yeah, he deadass says this aloud nowadays in media in which he's featured.
This is in the anime (I'll spare you my thoughts about Journeys and its handling of this arc, FOR NOW)...
...and this is from his debut event in Pokémon Masters EX: "Even though... I'm the strongest and coolest of all!".
NOW.
In RS/ORAS, this is just a sentence that's mostly slapped in his bio as a hint to the player that character is the Champion ("the strongest"!). And he never, ever, actually says anything to that effect. The closest things we get are his "You should have a very good idea about how good I am." / "if you're going to mount a serious challenge, expect the worst!" in Emerald (which is YET ANOTHER AU...), which still aren't saying exactly that, on top of it being a couple of quite generic 'taunt' sentences (almost every trainer tries to aura farm pre-battle, so I didn't think too much of it anyway).
The first time this sentence is used as actual character dialogue for him is in the PWT in BW2, in the case he defeats you. And I'm pretty sure it's also the last in mainline...
Why am I concerned with this? Simply put, after going through all the canon dialogue he got in all games he was featured in (RSE/ORAS/HGSS/BW2), his characterization shows him as a polite, kind, observant person, and also someone who largely lives in his own little world. Actually rather modest, too, acknowledging his shortcomings no problem; basically, his personality isn't at all CENTERED around a boastful attitude. So, how would this phrase really fit in with this characterization?
I feel a similar dissonance with his official promo pictures, in which he's mostly shown as arrogant, cocky, smug. It felt so weird to me, since he doesn't give me that feeling at all.
I started to understand these choices a bit more when I put my grubby hands on the Teraleak files: I read in the file where the characterizations of all RSE/ORAS characters are established that he's supposed to be kind of a narcissist with a heart of gold. I swear on my media literacy, this doesn't come across that much even knowing it's the basis of his characterization canonically. Like, I don't doubt their words and intentions but it's clearly a writer's failure here. Someone who has "I'm the strongest of them all!" as a catchphrase wouldn't tell a 12 yo kid he just met something like "I think that you have in you what it takes to become a Pokémon League Champion." or accept his defeat as gracefully as he (at least outwardly) does. In Delta Episode, he faces his mistakes with maturity and decides to move forwards. No, those aren't the makings of a narcissist or someone who says "I'm the strongest" so regularly it legit becomes a catchphrase. If they wanted to make this his catchphrase, they would have needed to largely rewrite the character, making him show much more of an ego throughout, or... you know, add a backstory (God knows how much I'd love to see his past in any kind of Pokémon related media) that justifies it.
The way things are, it's just awkward. It doesn't work. You can only eat it up if you have a very superficial experience with the franchise and base your impression of him only off of promo pictures and that one phrase, lol.
some project sekai fans would have a much more interesting time interacting with the game if they simply understood that friendships also have an inherent value !!
like yeah, okay, the mizuena "i want to be with you" sounds romantic. sure. whatever. but why does that have to be romantic? why can't we have in depth discussions about what the simple act of having a friend means for both mizuki and ena? why does it have to be "i want to be in a romantic relationship with you" and not "i want you to remain my dear friend because you reshaped my view of the world"? or for mizuki, "i want you to stay my friend because you make me feel like i deserve to have a friend"?
yeah, minori has a crush on haruka, we all know that. but why does minori's character have to be watered down to a haruka simp? why does it have to be "i love you because i'm in love with you" and not "i love you because you made me realize that i can be something more than the bad luck i was given"? or for haruka, "i love you because you love me enough to see past the idolized vision you had of me in your head"?
akito and toya covered aun no beats during pride month but why why why can't we focus on something other than the fact that they're gay. why can't it be "i trust you more than anything because you are the reason i'm the person that i am today"? why not "if not for you i would have given up a long time ago"?
or rui and tsukasa? "thank you for giving the opportunity to change" is just so. so so important. why should it be strictly romantic and not "i love you because you shook everything up and i'm no longer stagnating and alone"? "you made me realize that i have to consider that other people care for me and that i impact them"?
i feel like this isn't such a problem with leo/need because they're so underrated (at least in the western fandom) and since their dynamic is FOUNDED on friendship specifically, but i still want to see less of "ichisaki and shihonami lesbians" and more of "they know each other so well that they are practically extensions of each other" and "they love each other so much that they are always worried that they're hurting the others".
please for 1 second think that maybe shipping isn't the end all be all of relationships. maybe they don't have to be kissing, maybe they can just know and love and understand each other.
Steven: “Oh no, we’re all doomed by the narrative.” Maybe you are. I’m the narrative’s favorite.
Steven, after discovering Rule 34: Update: Turns out this is not a good thing for me.
snowghoul
turnnoffyourmind
romaincrisis
