>>18398746I agree wholeheartedly with Frisbee on this.
You have to understand. When Q first organized a monotype tournament on /vp/, that's all it was ever meant to be. It was the perticipants themselves that kind of hashed out and "demended" the gym challenge part, as a way to continue the fun and also reward the top finalists. It almost tore the whole thing apart, really, because Kate and Alex ragequit, Tuna didn't have time to be a gym leader and quit, Dangle straight up vanished, and Q was kinda pissed off at me, Nanaca and a few others for pushing the whole gym leader idea after all that. Honestly, even after I and the others hashed out the rules and whatnot, none of us even knew if it was gonna work. Would people even want to challenge us? But it turned out to be a smashing success!
Once I saw that the system worked, that is was a lot of fun, unique, and pretty balanced overall... I honestly was excited to see some young blood get the chance to party like a gym leader. After about a month of being a leader, I was definitely getting worn out. The tournament is going to be really fun, fresh, and whoever ends up in the top 8 this time is going to have my respect as a teambuilder and strategist, that's for sure.
I'll say this, though: the one quality of a gym leader you can't prove through battle is the quality of your own character. What you do and say in between battles. No one's perfect, but as a figure of leadership in this community, good character is how you really gain people's respect, not just their "fear." You can be a great battler, but if you're a royal jerk to people no one is going to care if you're good or not. I'm not directing this at anyone in particular, and I'm not perfect, either. I just feel it needs to be said.
