Okay, I've been going through and giving out this year's wave of companions! If you asked for a non-custom companion, you should have yours already. Unfortunately, while adding the custom companions, I discovered that we've run up against Xenforo's limit for how many options can be included in that postbit field, which means there is no room for all of the requested custom sprites. I had not realized that there was a limit on the number of options, but I had been planning to make changes to the companion system before next year's Review Blitz anyway in order to accommodate the increasing number of companions that some people have and also to implement some requested features (ability to reorder companions, Gen IX mon, etc.). This will also eliminate the space problem. However, I wouldn't expect that to be done before August, so if you are one of the unfortunate people to be caught out by this issue, you might be waiting a bit before you receive your companion.
These are the people affected and their requested companions:
-
@Cresselia92 - Shiny Celebi
-
@lichhen - Shiny Metapod
-
@silurica - Shiny Arceus
-
@Spiteful Murkrow - Sneasel Kate
-
@ShiniGojira - Shiny Salandit
-
@Shiny Phantump - Ceruledge
-
@System Error - Suikaibuki
If your name is on this list, you have two options: you can wait until I upgrade the companion system, at which point these will be added for you, or you can choose a different, non-custom companion for this event. The catch is that it has to be a non-custom species that someone else has already chosen (e.g. you could get a Charizard but not Venusaur or Blastoise, since no one's claimed one of the latter two yet). If you'd like to switch, just let me know what you're thinking; if I don't hear from you, I'll assume you're okay with waiting and add your companion when it becomes possible.
If your name is not on the list above and you
haven't received the companion you requested, that means I missed you! Please let me know ASAP so I can correct the problem.
At this time, companion claims are
closed for this event.
Also, thanks to everyone who gave feedback about the event or about the community! I've tried to answer all of you below. It's always helpful to hear what people like and dislike about the community, and what they'd like to see in the future!
Can we have a legendary or just a normal pokemon for our prize?
May I have Groudon? If not, I'd like a golden sudowoodo like these :View attachment 7104
I gave you a Groudon, but just to clarify for you: you can always request any pokémon, including legendaries! You could also have a golden sudowoodo, but you'd need to give me a sprite that fits the necessary parameters (.png 56 px high by 68 px wide).
Could I get a regular (unovan?) Zorua as my sprite reward?
And as for feedback, I haven't been here long but I really like this community. I honestly don't think I have felt more welcome in a community so quickly before, so this has been a great experience for me. I personally would love more drabble bingo events, this one was fun to participate in.
Fantastic, I'm glad to hear you've enjoyed your time on TR thus far! I can see how we might slip in more drabble bingos (or other drabble-related events) in the future. If you'd like to do some drabbling right this minute, you might enjoy
lichhen's drabble RP or
Drabble Tag!
I don't know what I would change for the big 5, if everything continues as is, then it's good in my book! Obviously not the most social person, but hoping that will change a bit when HA starts among other things.
Thanks, it's great that you enjoyed the event as-is. Good luck being more social, it's always fun to see your posts!
Hi! I had so much fun for my first celebration. And thanks to everyone who made it possible! I really appreciate all the work that goes into this community, its very obviously loved and well-cared for.
I would personally love more review exchanges. I'm all about those :3
Awesome, I'm glad you had fun with everything! More review exchanges is something we can look to foster... There's actually something the mods have talked about kicking off to fill this need that I just haven't gotten posted yet, so hopefully that will be ready to go in the next couple months.
As for feedback, I don’t have much! I thought this anniversary was fantastic and had a nice balance of many different kinds of events.
One idea I have for the 5 year anniversary: perhaps all the artists of TR can come together to collaborate on a TR banner? Maybe we can include references to one fic from each author somehow? I think that would be really cool!
Good to hear that you enjoyed the anniversary! Some kind of collaborative banner sounds like a great way to celebrate five years. The primary hurdle to be worked out there, I think, would be how to fit everybody's contributions onto a reasonably-sized banner while keeping them to a legible size... but that strikes me as highly solvable!
This was such a fun event. I had a lot of fun doing drabbles and reviews. I’m really happy that I joined TR, so many amazing people and fics I have found here. It also has made me more social, and I hope to enjoy it for the years to come!
As for the anniversary, I agree with Yellow… a banner would be amazing. I don’t have any feedback atm seeing that I am still new. But I’ll let you know if I come up with anything!
I'm glad you had a fun time during the anniversary! Thanks for letting me know you're interested in a banner project as well. I'll think more about how we could make that happen!
I wouldn’t mind seeing the same events next year, but if you accept some proposals… I was thinking of some fanzine/anthology of sorts containing drabbles and oneshot collections. Basically some kind of collaborative project where we can show the great skills of all artists and authors of this community.
We could pick themes as well, like a whump session, a WAFF session, Trainerverse and PMDverse tales, and so on.
A zine/collab is something people have been talking about for a while now, and I think it's a really fun idea! Look out for a project along these lines coming out later this summer.
hiiii this was such a cool collection of events im so happy i discovered TR just in time for the anniversary.
my favorite events were all the roleplaying games including FTQ, catnip speed dating, review blitz, and drabble bingo! more roleplay game sessions and speed catnip sessions would be fun.
i also adore Yellows idea for a banner collab
including fanfic characters! If I could add, any event that celebrates our characters would be exciting. events that encourage art and writing involving each other's characters. art exchange, drabble exchange.
negrek, thank you for your awesome pokemon website and forum. thanks to all the mods and volunteers, to name a few Jackie, Yellow, Bench, Minty, thank you for making this such a fun cool thing to have in my life!
Thanks for all this lovely feedback, and I hope you continue to have a good time on TR! I'd definitely like to see how we can run more speed catnips and roleplay events, and I think the banner collab is a great idea. Thanks for mentioning what you enjoyed most!
Events encouraging people to create works celebrating others' stories/characters sounds like a great idea, too. I'll think about what might work well there.
Okay. So, thoughts for the site.
- I know the Blitz is a big thing and a sort of tradition here, but I always disliked the idea that being rewarded for reviewing should only happen at certain times of the year. Especially since I (and no doubt others) can be very busy when it's ongoing. Back on Bulbagarden before staff shortages pretty much killed it, they had a
Review League that did just that, which allowed you to build up points for your reviews and cash them out for rewards. Maybe something similar could be implemented here? It could coexist with the Blitz, giving more or specific rewards for doing it during the event.
Thanks for giving so many thoughts and suggestions! I'll address each in its own quote.
The reason I don't tend to go in for long-running reward schemes like a review league is that in my experience, these sorts of systems tend to generate a lot of interest and activity early on, but then fall off considerably in participation after a few months. I think this is because people tend to respond well to something that feels fresh and exciting, but lose interest in something that feels routine. Time-limited events are ones that people can anticipate and which feel special whenever they come around, so I think they tend to get more consistent participation. However, if you have any thoughts about how a constantly-running background system could be sustained long-term, I'm willing to consider giving it a shot!
- Similarly, BG had a neat event called "Trainers of Fanfiction" which was basically little interviews with characters from fics (not necessarily trainers), with volunteer artists pitching in to give a graphical spin. Most of them had a theme of sorts, like parents or "professionals". There were prewritten questions to answer, although it was open-ended and more could be submitted. Readers could even ask questions as they were posted! Just an idea for people to have fic publicity and interactions, at least.
This sounds like a fun event! Definitely something we could do in the future.
- Actually, pretty much any formal things like that for exploring aspects of fics would be nice. There's lots of little informal threads, but they can be a little disjointed and chaotic. Basically, little hooks that might interest potential readers. BG used to have a (bi)monthly fic spotlight event, though I don't think that would work too well here for various reasons.
When you say "formal things for exploring aspects of fics," do you mean catchall kinds of threads like "What have you been reading?" or "Looking for a Name"? Or more threads where people could talk about specific aspects of their fics or characters?
- Maybe separate games/roleplay and the mafia section so last posts in the latter don't become the most recent posts in the former.
For the most part I think the rarity of having a mafia game and large roleplay running simultaneously means this isn't a big problem, but it's something to consider if that changes.
- Speaking of, more wide-scale roleplay campaigns could be neat, but of course, would require setting some up. Have some ideas myself for that matter, but need plotting to do. Never had a chance to join one here.
I would expect more large-scale roleplays to occur in the future, and in fact I would be looking for one to start up sometime this summer! If you'd like to host one yourself, that should be an option down the line as well. You'll have some time to get things prepped; I'd expect the best time to start one would work out to be a couple years in the future at this point.
- More sorting options/titles for fics. There's lots of sub-Pokemon categories, journey, PMD, etc. Having them all just be under Pokemon isn't really helpful on the fanfiction forum.
Are you looking for more subcategories within the fanfic forum, or more thread prefixes (currently Pokémon/Non-Pokémon/Original)? Something else?
I have to admit last few blitzs i lost a lot of review time due to said timing of the events. So i can definitly second the time crunch complaint.
It does suck that having Blitz once a year means that people who aren't free when it's going on end up missing out. If we were going to run a second review event in a year, is there any particular time you think would work well for it?