OM Interview

@Paradise: LMAO, The last time we pmed here was when you did my interview in 2020. How the turn tables.

%OM: We've come full cycle…

@Paradise: How are you, OM?

%OM: I'm doing fine! Been through uni midterms this past few weeks and I'm just working on my psych paper rn.

@Paradise: Sounds good: There's a lot of bullshit in the questions provided, but I'll navigate my way as best as possible. Here's something that multiple regs had a question about: [17:20:30] ~Zarel: honestly I don't like "OM" either but it's short enough that it's ambiguous.

@Paradise: What’s the deal with your name history? I remember promoting %OM back in the day.

%OM: Well my original name was OM Room (based on, of course, the other metagames room, which I frequented), but when I got Global Driver I decided "yknow, I should cut down on my name" and proceeded to just get "OM." 

%OM: So, after using my original name for about 6 years, I proceeded to use it as an alt for about ~4 days until Zarel, in all his glorious site owner wisdom, decided that I was "impersonating a room" and locked the name behind some bullshit admin stuff. 

%OM: The quote itself comes from me asking zarel about it and him spouting off his nonsense, and I have asked some admins about getting it back but they have hit me with "this is a high value name sorry" to which I think I have been unironically robbed.

 %OM: tl:dr zarel can come to canada and fistfight me.

@Paradise: I remember when we roomownered you, but you had your start far before that, Pants asks how you first got into survivor so long ago?

%OM: So as usual with most pokemon showdown things - I originally got into PS! thanks to my irl friend plasmaan when he was like "om let's go play pokemon" one day. I got kinda addicted to battling after that and kinda played a bunch of oms during that stint in Grade 8. It's also where I went from CorruptedFlame --> OM Room :O 

%OM: During that stint, Plasmaan invited me to play a survivor game with him, which I kind of just did a few and then we were done after that day. I think a few(?) days later I came back and played some survivor. It's hard to remember ~exactly much of what happened then because, like, I was 14 lol, but one thing I do distinctly remember was pq being like "yo we missed u cf" 

%OM: I guess I just stuck around and became friends with people after that. In high school I was super addicted to just. playing survivor. I eventually left because I just burnt out and got tired of everything ps™️, but I decided to come back in some fashion sometime last year bc I saw my boy zyg come back.

@Paradise: do you still have a relationship with plasmaan? Also I know what you mean, but you eventually made it back. What would you say is the biggest change from when you were RO to now? Both survivor room and PS wise?

%OM: Yeah! dude's my best friend lol. I'd visit him a lot more but he lives in the middle of nowhere, canada lmao. Yeah but it's like. fake back. ur more back than I am.

@Paradise:  Plasmaan Deez Nuts

%OM: bro.

%OM: Uh survivor wise I think things were on a bit of an uptick when I left, but room's definitely hella more active rn - the entire community feels new to me ngl. I think in-house things are definitely a bit louder/messier but that's more of a sign of staff being more active / interested now than before, and they'll figure themselves out eventually. 

%OM: PS-Wise I'm not sure? Clouds came back and he doesn't seem to immediately hate everything so that's probably a sign of growth, and I haven't heard of anything incredibly stupid happening in gstaff lately so im assuming a bit of a turnover has been good. Who knows maybe everything's on fire lmfao I am trying my best to not look into that side of the site.

@Paradise: Good enough, let’s move on to more survivor based questions. 

%OM: Finally, I get to tell you guys how much of a dictator PQ is.

@Paradise: Funnily enough, that’s who’s asking the first question. PQ asks why did you invent something as shit as Super Staff Bros? Also, Pants asks what your favorite theme is.

%OM: because I wanted your life to be worse pq. I want everything you do to cause you misery. I want you to wake up everyday knowing that SSB is a real theme that existed that you played and that got canonized because of the event *you* helped create. I want every step you make to be in a puddle, one who's reflection only shows you the entirety of the SSB list. I want you to lose focus at your computer and when you shake yourself back into gear, the SSB theme page is up. I want you to trip over a rock because you were cursing SSB. I want you to know the pain you inflicted upon me with your driver promotion idea. I want you to know the pain SSB will inflict upon you. I want you to think about SSB every time you get into an argument during policy, about how it was the root cause of all of this.

%OM: My Fav theme to host is dragon orbs bc I can pretend to be my hero bon dance, my fav theme to play is probs poles nowadays. Ofc I love my mod that I made lmao

@Paradise: What mod is that?

%OM: murder / overkill

@Paradise: at least it’s not wear down

%OM: nah, that was henka

@Paradise: moving on with more Survivor based questions, MyanMario asks how Survivor has impacted you as a person or w/e tf you are?

%OM: I see MyanMario has bought into that idea that I’m a demon from hell. Honest answer is that it (and PS as a whole) is the reason I am the person I am today - it helped develop a lot of my morals, likes, dislikes, personality, etc.

@Paradise: well, you gotta keep that going, the fuck do you mean that Pokemon Showdown!/survivor has an influence in your morals/dislikes/personality? Has it made you more of a scumbag?

%OM: yeah, that guy who ran you over? That was me. Survivor was one of the major parts of my life during my formative years (grade 8-12), and the people I was introduced to helped me figure out right and wrong.

%OM: Like it introduced me to the very concept of being transgender - something that I had no fucking clue about until a few years into my ps life lol. I think I was super rude to unfixable/wishes/skies as a kid sorry abt that

%OM: It gave me role models to emulate - I don't think I'd have such a reasonable viewpoint of the world without people I've met in survivor, mafia, oms, etc. It also introduced me to people I fucking despised, some of which are now permabanned lmao

@Paradise: so that being said, you fell into my trap; Paradise the GOAT, the elite, the best to ever do it, asks what current auth you despise?

%OM: Fuck. Outplayed. Outskilled. just kidding the answer was obviously pq.

@Paradise: PQ gets the despise. Lfolfo asks what theme you would change if you had no oversight.

%OM: Honestly - I'm not sure? I think I would probably rebuild SSB from the ground up if I could, I really did want to make something special for that NBT it does kinda suck that the theme itself was just the epitome of list theme madness ngl. I'm not sure how I'd do it but I'd definitely want to.

@Paradise: Well it’s your headass theme/event, you’re the one that should take care of it. All things serious, you did everything, why’d you come back? Why’d you leave in the first place?

%OM: I don't think I was having fun as RO, nor was I doing anything helpful for the team at that point. Sticking around would've probably just continued my fall into insanity / being super negative about everything. Getting a clean break from the site just helped me out so much with mental at that point. As for coming back now I kinda said it was cause I saw Zyg come back and that's like... vaguely correct. Survivor's pretty special to me and it was just something I recognized again after a while, so I kinda nostalgia baited myself into returning lmao.

@Paradise: What makes survivor special to you? It’s something you recognized and it’s the same with myself as an ex-RO, so I’m curious in your response.

%OM: I grew up in the community, y'know? I started when I was barely a teenager and now im a young adult like a year off from graduating university and becoming a working fuckin adult - It was just, like, an escape from irl and a place where I was probably the most "myself" I could be. Hell, a lot of the experiences I had in and because of this room helped me choose my major and my likely career choice. 

%OM: When I left I think I felt pretty disconnected from what survivor was at that point - lots of previous auth had gone and left, the current staff was a lot of new blood - it was hard to say it was the survivor room I had grown up with I think. 

%OM: Meanwhile, now we have a bunch of ppl coming back - zyg, pants, fucking zyx too - it's just something that felt closer to what it was before then what it was when I left, I guess.

@Paradise: What made you feel disconnected from the newer auth as opposed to the older auth? Or if it's not auth based, the newer survivor from the older survivor?

%OM: When you're not as active in the room you're kind of just promoting people based on the word of others y'know? You're not as close to them / haven't interacted enough to be as close with them. I think I rate all our current auth. 

@Paradise: I've read all the bullshit interviews before this, you're the first real one from the old age so I'm real curious. How do you think us old age auth can bridge the gap with the new age auth?

%OM: Honestly I think the increase of VCs has been insane for helping create bonds w/ the current staff & the amount of current staff hangout sessions is a lot of made me kinda nostalgic for the rooms again - I've got a pretty shitty mic so I tend to prefer text chat but I do genuinely like it here. I think it's just fucking around w/ them more yknow? If you just play games / talk with them / have other staff social events eventually you'll all just be one collective group even if they haven't been around for 500 billion years like we all have. Also my favourite reg is wooperfan3 tho. Free my goat.

@Paradise: currently blacklisted due to public IP shenanigans, RIP. Who have you spent time with amongst the new auth and which of the new auth do you want to get to know better?

%OM: I think I spent like 3 months speccing ptoad / sificon in their smorgon game, super big fans of both of them, if you haven't talked to them I'd recommend it. The one I’d like to get to know more is probably le’depression? Feel like I talk to them the least.

@Paradise: Good enough, the fact that you didn’t mention Opple leads to this question from Opple: “why do you suck?”

%OM: because I’m bi Opple, stop being homophobic you dickwad.

@Paradise: Tell him, super homophobic from Opple. Bringing it back to survivor, PQ asks what advice you’d have for someone that joins Survivor for the first time?

%OM: Shit dude don't take it seriously it's a fucking dice rolling room. Hop in, join games, talk to people, have fun man. Life is too short to be going gray over fake gambling.

@Paradise: I think that’s good advice and I’d echo that. That being said, the circle jerk questions are starting so you have to deal with those.

%OM: Finally, it’s time to see how many people r in the circle.

@Paradise: Congrats to Meltan808 on being a scumbag, they ask who’s your fav survivor auth, survivor voice, and survivor reg?

%OM: myself, myself in late 2022, and myself in 2014.

@Paradise: Best answers so far. I just read “other than yourself” but I give 0 fucks.

%OM: I can replace those answers with Paradise, Phable when he was voice, and parafail when he was a reg.

@Paradise: Go fuck yourself. What pokemon do you think represents yourself and also should represent the survivor room?

%OM: shiny magneton or flareon for myself, one for survivor room is probably just azelf. Fuck electrode he sucks.

@Paradise: I’d argue Jirachi for survivor, idk why we went down the azelf train.

%OM: it’s the willpower pokemon bro, u gotta have willpower to fucking grind 1 million survivor games day in and day out for top of the lb.

@Paradise: Willpower deez nuts imo. This was your last interview: https://survivor-ps.weebly.com/om-interview.html

@Paradise: Any changes from back then?

%OM: I support joke promos now. Intelligence is hating joke promos, wisdom is understanding they are necessary. - OM 2024

@Paradise: Wait a minute, I’m reading this too now. You posted a selfie into the cosmo selfie bank back then? TF is wrong with you?

%OM: Many things, I played mafia. Actually, let’s blame deetah here, she ran that room at some point.

@Paradise: Good enough, tell lionyx to not edate before he becomes admin if you’re going back to the past.

%OM: LOL

@Paradise: Go fuck yourself OM, always nice to see you.

%OM: you too man.

@Paradise: I’ll see you in 4-6 years when either one of ourselves interviews each other again.

%OM: 2028, I’ve got you. Sounds good to me.