Luke Loves Pokémon (a Forumite Podcast)

Fair enough, good luck with the new mike!

I actually attended a Fortean Society virtual talk on Stonehenge the other day. The presenter's suggestion was that it was used as a mnemonic device, aiding memory before words were a thing. She cited current-day Aboriginal devices and places of similar structure with similar purpose. Like the rock-boy himself, it was really interesting.

There was one recent podder that made me actually genuinely giggle a lot, but now I can't remember what it was, sorry.  Corsola was good, but then anything that made you get on your high Ponyta about climate change was always going to get a from me.  Sorry I sounded so halting and circular about Drakloak.


Anyway!  What to do after Gen. 8 expires and you've had a break.  The obvious answer is 'what you want', but assuming you're looking for actual suggestions: not Gen. 7, I reckon now's the time to get back on track and do the rest of them in 'the right' order.  Apart from anything else it'll give you more time to stretch the pod out for without padding, assuming that's what you want.

What I think would be really quite cool is for you to look at different monster-based franchises and 'love' the mascots as an excuse to chat about a series a week, or a fortnight, or whatever.  Digimon, Yo-Kai Watch, MonHun, Nexomon...  Obviously you wouldn't be able to talk in-depth about some of these, but you could research the mascots, read their Pokédex equivalents, and get other people who know more about those series to fill in the blanks...

...or just pretend they're Pokémon and do them completely straight, with made-up competitive info. and Pokédex entries, and really confuse people.  I'd laugh my head off at that.  Anyway, I think that might be a fun idea, but you do what makes you happy, natch.

I would love to do Luke Loves Digimon but everything's a bit more vague and nebulous with Digimon. It's not like Pokémon where every monster is numbered, the game canon supersedes all else and the families are well defined.

I'd also like to do an open Luke Loves Monsters and just look at mythology, maybe starting with Japan, but that would be a lot of work so it won't happen any time soon.

As it happens, the fates seem to have intervened. Right as I was wondering what to do . . . a Monster Hunter Direct went and happened, reinvigorating me and the boys. So my current thinking is that Monster Mash might fill up my Thursday podcasting slot.

Fair enough, enjoy! Who knows, if I get into Rise I might starting listening along too...

It has begun; I now have three different podcasts coming out on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays respectively.

Looking at the LLP schedule, November will be pretty standard episodes about Phanpy and Donphan, Stantler, Smeargle and Miltank.
Then through December and January we'll have all the Gen 2 Legendaries, Tyranitar and the Gen 3 starters! These are cool and exciting monsters which I guess people will have things to say about, so I figure I ought to give plenty of warning that you should all be getting in touch!

I don't actually care all that much about the Legendary Do- (is silenced) That said, the Stantler one was one of my recent faves, simply because I didn't know it was so interesting! It does feel like Stantler should've been Normal/Dark or something to make it stand out.

Is that one of my jingles playing at the start of the Legendary Beast episodes? Sounds better than I remember!

Yep, that's your choral version of the opening.

Woo, Season 3!  Hoping for plenty of Andy this time around.

I never made the fighting cock connection with Blaziken, which I think is probably a Good Thing - for my enjoyment of the monster anyway.

Damn it, I never made the connection with hyenas and therefore pronounced the names wrong for my entire segment.

Still listening to and enjoying these on a regular basis! Chalk the 'pearls before swine' thing about Spoink up as another obvious reference I completely missed when playing the games.

What's the deadline for me submitting something about Cacturne and for you actually being able to react to it in the pod, Buska? Also: we're nearing Absol week, or at least we're nearing the point where I record what I want to say for Absol week. How long am I allowed to waffle on about Absol for, reasonably speaking? Because I have a lot to say about Absol.

Thanks man! This is ticking away at half-decent numbers; we'll hit the 10,000 downloads soon (although we definitely already have because the metrics are fucked and the number rebooted when I changed providers). People still joining the facebook now and then, and none of them messaging me, and between this and Mash the Patreon subscribers are covering the upload fees.

I generally record one week in advance. I wake up, write, record, edit, upload to the patreon and then schedule it on the main feed.

Ah, glad it's doing well. This thread's obviously dead and I don't see the replies on Twitter, so I was a bit worried! Although I know it's mostly a passion project for you anyway.

I'll try and get Cactus Man up this weekend. What are your thoughts on my permitted level and length of Absol gushing?

I'm slowly realising that only, like, less than 1% of a podcast's audience tends to engage and get in touch. On the podcasts I listen to, like TCGS or the Back Page, it's always the same names cropping up in interactive sections.

But as I always say on Mash, I do it because I want it to exist. I actually don't care much who listens

I think there's something to be said for having a backlog of content you've made to go back and listen to someday. I chucked on a random 2018 episode of Mash one night when I was heading to bed and enjoyed listening back to past Jay and the lads talk some shite about monsters.

I can get a real kick out of doing that with Mash, but I don't know if LLP would be fun in the same way for me to go back to. Less bantz

I'm a fair bit behind on LLP myself but I tend to listen to them in chunks anyway so I'd say it works very well in that sense, it's not like it's gonna age as Pokémon is a constant. For that same reason I tend not to contribute much in terms of feedback as well (that and the lack of meaningful comments I can make).

Oh I'm not sure any of my comments are meaningful. See Wailord on the subject.

Any forumites who have fallen behind or are not regular listeners might still enjoy the episode which is going live on Christmas Day; Andy and I doing a "Christmas Top of The Pops" and counting down our rankings of the Pokémon Theme Tunes from worst to best.