Board 8 > ^King of the Mountain^ - Save My Canine - Winner: Snoopy

(+) Yeah! (+)

I think this is a good winner sometimes it's ok to like something that is popular.

Im torn on the Pokmon rule. On one hand, sometimes too many get in. But on the other hand, some categories are a great fit for certain ones. For example, Ditto is what I think of when someone says shapeshifter. It would be weird to not include a Pokmon that truly embodies a category.
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Zigzagoon posted...

I doubt it'll come up but what about Pokemon that can be your partner in Mystery Dungeon games?

They technically ARE a character and have personality / backstory but they can be one of like 30 different species that you choose from.

My good buddy Cyndaquil which is a fun and lovable character would be a Totodile or Squirtle for someone else, etc.

In that case, the character is "Partner (Pokemon Mystery Dungeon)", imo, and not tied to any particular species.
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MC_XD posted...

Zigzagoon posted...

I doubt it'll come up but what about Pokemon that can be your partner in Mystery Dungeon games?

They technically ARE a character and have personality / backstory but they can be one of like 30 different species that you choose from.

My good buddy Cyndaquil which is a fun and lovable character would be a Totodile or Squirtle for someone else, etc.

In that case, the character is "Partner (Pokemon Mystery Dungeon)", imo, and not tied to any particular species.

Hard for anyone to get excited voting for "Partner"
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I've never played the game. Does the partner have different dialogue depending on the species or is it the same for everything?
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It's the same yeah. Though I think in Super you can choose between 2 different personalities? I'm not sure how much that changes dialog though.
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StifledSilence posted...

Im torn on the Pokmon rule. On one hand, sometimes too many get in. But on the other hand, some categories are a great fit for certain ones. For example, Ditto is what I think of when someone says shapeshifter. It would be weird to not include a Pokmon that truly embodies a category.

It could be the Ditto from the anime. (Google says Duplica's Ditto) IIRC that's how it worked in Pets when we had Ash's Squirtle.
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Zigzagoon posted...

It's the same yeah. Though I think in Super you can choose between 2 different personalities? I'm not sure how much that changes dialog though.

The game makes it look like it'll change the personality ("Cool" and "Cute") but it actually just changes the character's gender. Cool is male, Cute is female. Dialog is almost identical except pronouns.
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Yeah, I wasn't sure lol
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Hbthebattle posted...

Again, the contests play fast and loose with what qualifies as a character, and given where we are, I see no reason this shouldn't play by similar rules. Just put a cap at like 3 or something, that stops them from flooding the contest.

It seems pointless to cap one series and not another, and I'm not at all interested in capping series otherwise because I feel that does a disservice to the people who play and just having a diverse cast for diversity's sake isn't what I'm interested in.

I'm not gonna worry about being bound by the Contest rules in large, this isn't that contest.
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Then yeah, sounds like it should be called Partner. Unless it's something like Felines and you nom Litten, for example. (I don't know if any of the games have a Litten partner, just the first thing that came to mind.)
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Yeah but I don't want to be saving Partner if it means I'm saving someones Chikorita. I hate Chikorita.
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fwiw I agree with charon on both counts: capping series does a disservice to nominators, and Pokemon species probably shouldn't get in (like you presumably wouldn't let in "kitsune" or "jackalope"). I'd also suggest that legendary Pokemon from the games be allowed, since those actually are unique individuals rather than species. Like if I nominate Mewtwo (Pokemon Red), that's a specific character with specific backstory that you can encounter in the Unknown Dungeon.

(Mewtwo's not a shapeshifter, I'm just speaking generally)
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Pokemon species are basically interchangeable with counting them as specific characters if you go by typical use in media. Smash Bros has "Jigglypuff" as a character. It's not intended as "a random Jigglypuff."

I mean it's your prerogative and I certainly wouldn't mourn the loss of random Pokemon species, but I wouldn't remove them, myself. Feels more like we're aiming to lawyer them off the field before they can do anything than a legitimate beef to have.
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I don't recall Pokemon making up a large portion of these, other than the animal categories. There just happen to be lots of Pokemon that fit those categories.

Snoopy is a solid winner. Not a personal favorite, but I enjoy him.

I'm still mad I let Courage go out when he did.

I'll go ahead and nominate Dragons
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Deoxys should be eligible too.

But I agree that evolution =/= shapeshifter
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as someone who doesn't normally save pokemon, i feel like there's enough precedence for species and character being interchangeable. like, they're all identical and their proper names and their species name are the same. it's like how you can have a mirror match in a fighting game but ryu is still a character.
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- Lawyers
+ Shapeshifters

PumpkinCoach posted...

as someone who doesn't normally save pokemon, i feel like there's enough precedence for species and character being interchangeable. like, they're all identical and their proper names and their species name are the same. it's like how you can have a mirror match in a fighting game but ryu is still a character.

I don't really think it's like that at all. There's only one Ryu in Street Fighter canon. There are thousands of Eevee in the Pokemon world.

I can see the argument for legendaries, sort of, but your garden variety Pokemon? Nah.
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Yeah, that's the thing. Pokemon are presented as a species group in their own media. There are individual ones, of course, and that's been noted countless times and is obvious.

I'm still on the fence, mostly because I feel like people will get their favorite Pokemon into this somehow regardless of the rule enforcement. We'll see how I feel Saturday.
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It comes off as kind of sore sport to ban Pokemon after it seemed to mostly be you complaining about them taking up spaces near the finals in place of your favorites. Especially, when no action was taken on the cross-contest trading in Disney with the Pooh situation. But from what I understand, this contest is yours, and the Disney is a community one that just passes between different hosts every year, so I can respect any choice you make here.
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I support eliminating Pokemon as a species since they aren't characters. I fully support unique individual Pokemon being nominated.
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scarletspeed7 posted...

I support eliminating Pokemon as a species since they aren't characters. I fully support unique individual Pokemon being nominated.

Agreed. It's definitely not just charon that doesn't want basic Pokemon species around.
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If we ban Pokemon, can I arbitrarily choose things to ban as well?
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There are species but like, Pokemon are treated as individuals with names as the species all the time. Ash's Pikachu is named Pikachu, not Studaddy. In Smash it's clearly one specific Jigglypuff etc.

Comparing it to mirror match Ryu is poor but I dunno, like, Robo-Ky from Guilty Gear for example, while there are an army of identical models the story Robo-Ky is clearly a distinctive character from the lot of them
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Jigglypuff was the name of the individually nominated Jigglypuff in that contest and that's fine. If Robo-Ky was nominated, it would be understood that it is a distinctive one.

In my mind, this is like banning that one sword Pokemon that got nominated for knights. It's a species nomination. No one mentioned a specific variation of it.

In Heroes of Might and Magic, I was always a fan of my Azure Dragon unit. But I can't nominate it because there are thousands of Azure Dragons. It's not a singular character.
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I'm assuming, even if the species is banned, you could nominated a specific one that shows up in an anime. With unnamed characters like Doggy from Room, and Bear in Tutu from Goofy, I imagine you could probably nominate things like "Beedrill from (insert specific forest that he showed up in an episode)"
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One specific sword Pokemon character is just making it more annoying to nominate it if people want to. You can always pick a specific one in the game if you want.

Pokemon as a series has weak characterization. If people wanna nominate Giovanni's Persian it's gonna be basically the same thing as nominating Persian.
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Lopen posted...

One specific sword Pokemon character is just making it more annoying to nominate it if people want to. You can always pick a specific one in the game if you want.

Pokemon as a series has weak characterization. If people wanna nominate Giovanni's Persian it's gonna be basically the same thing as nominating Persian.

I'm confused - this is an argument in favor of allowing Pokemon?
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Also with very few exceptions, all unique versions of a Pokemon are gonna feel identical. In their head I imagine most people consider Smash Pikachu and Pokemon anime Pikachu the same for example.

Map that with the fact that you can pick a specific one for every Pokemon if you really want, and yeah it's just easier to just leave em nominated as is.

And yes the quality of characterization has nothing to do with their viability as a character. For example I think Crono and Link have very poor characterization but they are obviously eligible characters, even though much like a Pokemon multiple Links exist.
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NBIceman posted...

I'm confused - this is an argument in favor of allowing Pokemon?

Yeah, I don't even know how to respond to that one. The quality of characterization doesn't diminish the difference between a character and a species.
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I'm in favor of specific characters only.
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Is Save My Spider a viable contest? Or are all species of Spider-Man lumped together?

I still have one nomination left, so this is a real question.
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Eh I think it's fine to disallow generic Pokemon species but let individual ones in. And if people mix them up in their heads, that's on the voter.
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TomNook posted...

Is Save My Spider a viable contest? Or are all species of Spider-Man lumped together?

I still have one nomination left, so this is a real question.

Spider-Man isn't a spider.
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Raka_Putra posted...

Eh I think it's fine to disallow generic Pokemon species but let individual ones in. And if people mix them up in their heads, that's on the voter.

As someone who has never nominated a Pokemon and has almost never saved one, I just think this adds an unnecessary layer of annoyance to nominating Pokemon is all and makes their nomination unnecessarily awkward. Just kinda silly.
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scarletspeed7 posted...

TomNook posted...

Is Save My Spider a viable contest? Or are all species of Spider-Man lumped together?

I still have one nomination left, so this is a real question.

Spider-Man isn't a spider.

Referring to the spider that bit him in each iteration.
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NBIceman posted...

Agreed. It's definitely not just charon that doesn't want basic Pokemon species around.

Sure it is.

I mean honestly, I don't know why I bother sometimes. SMFFFC has a similar rule and no one ever gave those hosts a hard time about it, but you've got some jerks in here who just love to come after me when I make decisions that I'll remind people, were heavily pushed to me.
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You're the boss on this, and if you don't want them in, you don't want them in. You don't have to listen to my opinion either.
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v_charon posted...

SMFFFC has a similar rule and no one ever gave those hosts a hard time about it

When your victim complex distorts reality.

I've been posturing for Dark Nation and ?????? in SMFFFC for years and got some following for the former.

Also Nick wanted some dumb FFV enemy in IIRC.
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For whatever it's worth, and I imagine it's maybe not much, the majority of us here do appreciate you taking the time to run a continuing contest of this breadth. The dissenters are always gonna be the loudest voices, especially on a place like B8 where a lot of folks (including myself, at times - I'm not trying to call anyone out) like to argue about things and be difficult just for the hell of it.

But I'm always of the opinion that if people don't like the rules of a contest or the order of a ranking they can just go make their own version.
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I mean it's definitely up to you I'm just calling a spade a spade here. We already got Dark Nation in save my canine so the extent I'd ever care is long gone.

I just think it's as simple as you want a reason to ban Pokemon though and so you're just arbitrarily adding the rule with the intent to do so. Which if you want to do that that's completely fine it's your contest but I don't think it's particularly good form is all.
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the funny thing is, i feel like this will do nothing to lower the amount of pokemon, but will open up the potential for multiples of the same pokemon in a contest.

(that said yeah, your call, and i'll say no more no matter what you decide. i just weighed in because i thought of a really dumb mirror match comparison and had to make it).
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Lopen posted...

I just think it's as simple as you want a reason to ban Pokemon though

Yet you accuse me of having a "victim complex", but at the same time outright accuse me of this. This idea was pushed on me in the Gauntlet discord chat, by a number of people during the course of the last contest. If you ask them, and I'm sure they'll speak up, they'll tell you until this last week I defended Pokemon staying around because I have always allowed them in the past.

But yeah, go ahead and think it's all me. People like you and Inviso make me question why I bother with this place at all anymore. Hate filled, accusatory parasites.
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I mean, I've been desiring that for a long time, but charon is a big boy and can make his own decisions and I'll respect them in either eventuality.
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Personally, I love Pokemon so it's not an issue of bias. I just agree with scarlet from a strict rules perspective:

scarletspeed7 posted...

I support eliminating Pokemon as a species since they aren't characters. I fully support unique individual Pokemon being nominated.

I do agree with Lopen that most Pokemon fans (including myself) don't make huge distinctions between individual and species - e.g. a Persian fan will vote Persian whether it's listed as "Persian" or "Giovanni's Persian." But that's fine with me. If Giovanni's Persian does well due to general species fans, it's not that different from me voting Amaterasu because I just like her design.

(I also think we don't need to be overly pedantic about naming - like "Pikachu (Pokemon anime)" is pretty clearly Ash's Pikachu and not some generic Pikachu in the forest - but ultimately names aren't that important as long as the characters can get in.)
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Are you saying I have a victim complex I'm not sure I follow you. I really don't care what rule you pick.

I'm saying your motives seem biased. If you think I'm saying that to antagonize you rather than simply thinking it's the truth then yeah, more evidence of your victim complex right there. I got no problem with you dude. Buried that hatchet many years ago.
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A victim complex is where one person believes they are being attacked and they aren't. You attacked me by saying something that simply is false, and if I really wanted to I could post logs to back that claim up. I don't appreciate it being insinuated that I want to ban Pokemon for personal reasons when I'm sitting here and telling you that isn't true. It's calling me a liar, and I don't appreciate it.
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It's only an attack if I believe it's false when I say it. I believe it's likely right given your history of reactions to Pokemon doing well. So it's an (unflattering, admittedly) observation, not an attack.

It's possible I'm wrong but saying you appear biased in your motives is not driven by any malice on my end.

Logs are unlikely to really change that belief either so don't bother. Ultimately even if other people bring it up what arguments you find compelling will always be driven by your own biases to some extent. I'm not saying you're incapable of any sense of being unbiased with this contest or anything but you've had some hiccups here and there and I do think biases have clouded the previous blunders as well.

This would be another one imo, but nothing I'm going to harass you over long term. You're the host and you waste enough time on this so if you wanna rules lawyer some entrants you don't like out go for it.
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