The Well #90: bdt2002’s Special Interests

[bdt2002]

Hello, everyone, and if you’re seeing this after midnight, Happy New Year. It took longer than expected for me to finish this up, since Christmas plans kept me busy and I was trying to figure out where to actually post this. I want to give a brief shoutout to the user doipy hooves for reminding me to post this on time. Thankfully I saw that before midnight myself.

So as you may have heard, my online username is bdt2002, and I spend most of my time on Smogon exploring casual conversation discussions and talking with people about my special interests. As a person who doesn’t just have autism and ADHD, but is actively studying developmental disabilities as both my career and a personal interest, I often have really specific ways that I like to do things but I’ve loved being a part of this community ever since I joined this site and Pokémon Showdown in the late 2010s.

Let’s get started with some questions, shall we? If anyone has any more questions, feel free to post them.

Question for the well:

Tell us about your academic interests and professional goals (to the extent that you have identified them at this point). What experiences, talents, accomplishments, and/or characteristics inspired and contributed to these goals? What avenues have you explored to learn more about this or to gain experience in this area to date? [Note: This is your opportunity to tell us who you are as a thinker. Please focus your essay on you, your experiences, and your ideas, not on what the Honors College offers.]

500 words or less plz

I started majoring the human/social services in my second year of college after going interdisciplinary my first year. I’ve known about my diagnoses for a long time and have always had an interest in helping other people. As for things I do in my personal time, I tend to enjoy more relaxing games and things I grew up either since I feel like I do my best work with a sense of familiarity. Lately I’ve also started exploring getting back into creative writing, something I was particularly fond of during the pandemic. And, of course, I would be reminded not to mention my crippling addiction to the Pokémon Ranger games which got me interested in the entire franchise the moment I fell in love with the third installment. Video games and creative writing have both helped teach me a lot about perseverance, patience, and teamwork, among other things.

Nowadays, people can usually find me watching Seattle Seahawks football games and highlights and recapping these in the NFL threads and find me playing Pokémon, Smash, Mario Kart, and a list of other Nintendo games. Thank you all for inviting me into this community. I am accepting questions if you have any.

 

[doipy hooves]

Well, it's nice to hear that post of all things made a difference to someone today, so I guess I should actually engage here.

As a largely dedicated smogon.com forum poster of all things generalist and genuine (from my impression), do you have any thoughts/opinions on the relatively recent official Pokemon.com community forums (https://community.pokemon.com), and/or the state of other Pokemon forums in general?

No need to do research to get informed or anything, I'm more wondering to hear your current impressions (if any) on the meta aspect of forums and maybe why you settled on Smogon since you already seem pretty open about your experiences with games in life and such.

 

[BP]

what gets you out of bed in the morning

 

[chroma_2903]

what are your new years' resolutions

 

[BIG ASHLEY]

as far as i can tell, it seems like you've had some difficult times on these here forums over the years -- what keeps you coming back when the postin' gets tough?

what do you think is the best post you've ever made? is that the same as your  favourite post you've made? do you think that's a worthwhile distinction to make?

what genre/s do you enjoy in your creative writing?

would you play pokemon ranger: guardian signs for the nintendo ds with a ghost?

 

[bdt2002]

Well, it's nice to hear that post of all things made a difference to someone today, so I guess I should actually engage here.

As a largely dedicated smogon.com forum poster of all things generalist and genuine (from my impression), do you have any thoughts/opinions on the relatively recent official Pokemon.com community forums (https://community.pokemon.com), and/or the state of other Pokemon forums in general?

No need to do research to get informed or anything, I'm more wondering to hear your current impressions (if any) on the meta aspect of forums and maybe why you settled on Smogon since you already seem pretty open about your experiences with games in life and such.

I think it’s a good thing for multiple different sources of similar interests to exist for the sake of competition and innovation- Smogon being not just a resource but also a community people can be a part of alongside a more “official version” of the same idea as our Forums allows for people to make their own choices depending on what and where they feel the most comfortable. I will admit I was worried about the future of Smogon for a moment there when the official Pokémon Forums opened up, though, and have had similar concerns for Pokémon Showdown.

As for myself, one thing I’ve always prided myself on is my belief in transparency. I understand many people might not want to be as open as I can tend to be online, which makes perfect sense given… it’s the Internet, but for many of my favorite topics I enjoy being able to communicate my thoughts and feelings in a different setting with other people. Social forums are both similar and different to social media in that sense. I specifically feel comfortable moreso here than with other social platforms.

what gets you out of bed in the morning

As much as I believe I do my best work in the evenings, I do think working in the mornings can give me a reason to actually set an alarm on my phone and not sleep in until who knows when. Sometimes, the thought of a nice breakfast also helps me want to get out of bed, and I would be unwise to not mention my tendency to wake up early on certain holidays and birthdays.

what are your new years' resolutions

Hmm. Good question. My take on New Year’s resolutions tend to be less about specific things I want to do that year and more focused around a theme for the year that I can follow. For example, a big theme for me in 2025 was trying to make advancements in my career path, and in 2022 and 2023 a major focus of mine was attempting to be more outgoing after a particularly difficult 2021-22 stretch. For 2026? I haven’t decided on a whole theme just yet, but I do hope to keep advancing in my career path and especially focus more on becoming good at managing my finances.

as far as i can tell, it seems like you've had some difficult times on these here forums over the years -- what keeps you coming back when the postin' gets tough?

what do you think is the best post you've ever made? is that the same as your  favourite post you've made? do you think that's a worthwhile distinction to make?

what genre/s do you enjoy in your creative writing?

would you play pokemon ranger: guardian signs for the nintendo ds with a ghost?

1. I was wondering when someone might bring this up. This got especially bad in 2024 and 2025 and I’ve said more than a few stupid things about my interest in video games as well as overly criticistic (how do you spell that word?) comments and claims about Pokémon Legends Z-A. Ultimately, it’s very hard for me to stay mad about something for too long, and I kept coming back after these harder moments because I kept wanting to find the positive in stressful situations and ultimately find enjoyment in the franchise that’s changed my life. Speaking of which…
2. My “best” post I’ve ever made in terms of views and reactions would probably be one of two things. I’d either go with my thread I made for people to post tier lists, or my Unpopular Opinions thread for Pokémon Scarlet & Violet. I also made one for Legends Z-A but due to the game being newer it hasn’t seen as much activity. Between those, I think I like the Tier List thread more from personal enjoyment but the Unpopular Opinions one is a close second on account of me loving to read people’s hot takes in general.
3. My dive into creative writing started in late 2019 around the release of Pokémon Sword & Shield and was primarily focused around my self-insert adaptation of Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs. Trust me, folks, I have a lot I could say about this game and actually tried to at one point recently before I had a generational crash-out. Fan fiction started speaking to me during the pandemic especially, and later during college I started exploring original concepts of mine and turned my focus towards adventure fantasy and the occasional science fiction, but I’ve never been confident enough to sit down and actually finish a story beyond a couple of Chapters.
4. That depends. Is the ghost trying to help me or trying to get in my way of whatever it is I’m doing? If the ghost could be another player for the sake of the Wireless Multiplayer Missions, that would unironically be a huge help. In any case, I love Pokémon and especially this game enough to the point where I’d be hard pressed to find a reason to not want to play it, with the notable exception of my large hand size making it harder to play on smaller DS and 3DS systems consistently.

 

[Let's go shuckles]

Did you ever complete the deoxys temple in pokemon ranger guardian signs?

 

[bdt2002]

Did you ever complete the deoxys temple in pokemon ranger guardian signs?

This is going to sound absolutely heretic, but… no. Look at me, self-claiming I’m a superfan of this game and I can’t even say I’ve done everything in the game. I’ve quite “only” done 99 percent of it and played through the game three separate times. Not even when I had an Action Replay back in the day- I guess it just never occurred to me. I knew the event mission existed. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I didn’t have Internet access for quite some time- it would have been during the second half of 2014 if I remember correctly when our family finally got Internet access I could actually use for things like this.

There was another problem, too. The Pokémon Ranger games weren’t the most popular games in the world for most of their existence and I never had anyone else to actually play the game with. This is an issue since Deoxys and the Odd Temple uniquely requires at least two players to complete the mission without cheating, and that’s if you can access the event which, I did check, there was no physical way to do. Even nowadays with the DNS exploit I still wouldn’t be able to do complete the mission unless I found someone to play with.

 

[RainWaiv]

any notable events from bdt2001?

also non-joke question: what are your favorite genres of video games?

 

[Bog Monster]

got any pets?

 

[ImaginaryNeon]

Opinions on me eating your car keys

 

[Just A Shroom God]

would you take unsolicited fanfiction recommendations for fandoms you may or may not be a part of

 

[vishy fishy]

Could I have 704$? Know it’s a long shot but

 

[bdt2002]

any notable events from bdt2001?

also non-joke question: what are your favorite genres of video games?

bdt2001 hasn’t been seen in quite some time; my sources tell me he was last seen trying to open a business in another country.

As for my favorite genres, I grew up playing a decent amount of racing games and I also tend to enjoy action platformers and various adventure games.

got any pets?

I used to have a cat until we had to put her out of her misery, and I also have a tortoise who doesn’t really do much but he is able to read. No, I’m being serious, he can read and recognize pictures in a book. Imagine being an iPad kid and having worse literacy skills than a tortoise.

Opinions on me eating your car keys

I’m sorry, you did what now? That explains where they went, but… let’s just say that probably hurt coming out of you know what I mean

would you take unsolicited fanfiction recommendations for fandoms you may or may not be a part of

I feel like that depends on what it is you plan on recommending me. I’m willing to hear you out, but if it happens to be anything overtly mature I probably wont have much interest in it.

Could I have 704$? Know it’s a long shot but

Do you use a specific currency? In this economy $704 U.S. might be a bit much but I’m interested to see what you have in mind for that oddly specific amount so maybe I can help after all.

 

[vishy fishy]

bdt2001 hasn’t been seen in quite some time; my sources tell me he was last seen trying to open a business in another country.

As for my favorite genres, I grew up playing a decent amount of racing games and I also tend to enjoy action platformers and various adventure games.


I used to have a cat until we had to put her out of her misery, and I also have a tortoise who doesn’t really do much but he is able to read. No, I’m being serious, he can read and recognize pictures in a book. Imagine being an iPad kid and having worse literacy skills than a tortoise.


I’m sorry, you did what now? That explains where they went, but… let’s just say that probably hurt coming out of you know what I mean


I feel like that depends on what it is you plan on recommending me. I’m willing to hear you out, but if it happens to be anything overtly mature I probably wont have much interest in it.


Do you use a specific currency? In this economy $704 U.S. might be a bit much but I’m interested to see what you have in mind for that oddly specific amount so maybe I can help after all.

I thought that if i requested a weirdly specific number than mabye people would think it was for something specific and important and give me it

 

[Just A Shroom God]

I feel like that depends on what it is you plan on recommending me. I’m willing to hear you out, but if it happens to be anything overtly mature I probably wont have much interest in it.

Sorry, that first post was mostly a joke brought on by my endless frustration of finding yet another amazingly well-written fanfiction to obsess over that I will never, ever be able to convince anyone I know to read :/. When you've failed to catch the few people who might actually care, might as well just spread the net as wide as possible, right? You'll be happy to know that I've since bitten the bullet, and am in fact dead.

What do you mean 'mature'? Does that mean adult/nsfw, or grimdark, or just anything that isn't pure fluff? Do you have any trope/genre you like to read?

 

[bdt2002]

Sorry, that first post was mostly a joke brought on by my endless frustration of finding yet another amazingly well-written fanfiction to obsess over that I will never, ever be able to convince anyone I know to read :/. When you've failed to catch the few people who might actually care, might as well just spread the net as wide as possible, right? You'll be happy to know that I've since bitten the bullet, and am in fact dead.

What do you mean 'mature'? Does that mean adult/nsfw, or grimdark, or just anything that isn't pure fluff? Do you have any trope/genre you like to read?

Hey, it’s all good. Can’t blame someone for wanting to read a well-written story, after all. When I say mature, I really just mean adult/NSFW. I generally try and avoid explicit material in my own reading and writing unless I absolutely have some kind of need to include it, which has not happened anyways making that a moot point.