Damian Silverblade

Damian Silverblade was the user name of a poster on several Pokémon message boards, also known by the names Evil Figment and Big Bad Pokémon. He has been a moderator and administrator on The Pokémasters, Serebii.net and Bulbagarden, as well as writing several works of fanfiction.

He is probably best known for his role as administrator, and later head administrator, on Bulbagarden from 2003 to 2006.

Early community background

Damian first joined the community under the name Big_Bad_Pokémon in late 1999 on the World-of-Nintendo forums. He did not participate much there.

In April 2000, he was informed of the existence of the Pokémasters forums, and promptly joined. There, he soon became involved in writing fanfiction, and participating in online roleplaying. His fanfiction writing soon brought him attention, and, in the Pokémasters' fanfic board summer 2000 awards, he was nominated to many categories, and won several times.

By that time he met fellow fantasy fanfiction writers Timarelay and Rapidash Rider, and founded with them the Fantasy Trio, which would later expand into the Weavers of Destinies, an organization dedicated to promoting quality pokémon fanfiction, especially in the fantasy genre.

First stay as moderator

It was, however, his participation in roleplaying games that first brought him to official attention. He was one of the original players in LilacMew's Pokémon School RPG (an RPG based on the Hogwart school of Harry Potter books), and, when LilacMew stepped down, was chosen along with Bulbasaur 11345 to replace her.

When Pokémaster Kevin, owner of The Pokémasters, elected to create a roleplaying games forum (roleplaying games having been, until then, part of the fanfiction forum), fanfiction moderator Blitzzzzzz noticed the high degree of organization of the Pokémon School RPG, and put Damian's name forward as a potential moderator. He was given the post in the autumn of 2000.

He remained a moderator of the roleplaying forum for the rest of 2000, but early in 2001, he offered fanfiction moderator Ginger Cat of Team Rocket to change place, as she was more active in the roleplaying forum, and he in the fanfic one. He retained that position for a few months, then resigned in the spring of 2001. Around that time, he changed his user name from Big Bad Pokémon to Damian Silverblade

Sabbatical, and return as moderator

During his break from moderation, he focused on writing once more, editing and rewriting his The Greater Evil saga. The improved version, just as the original, proved highly popular, and won several award in the summer of 2001, and when completed, dominated the winter 2002 awards.

In the late summer of 2001, several incidents involving forum poster Mewfour (who had flamed a new fanfic writer until he had responded, then convinced moderators on other Pokemasters forums to intervene on his behalf) interested him in fanfic board politics again. When offered to resume his post as moderator, he readily accepted, and proceeded to put an end to Mewfour's actions, and to reduce the chances of such a situation developping again.

He remained a moderator into 2002. When the Pokémasters lost its servers due to financial issues, he formed a refuge on ezboard; when Pokémaster Kevin created an EZboard of his own, Damian rapidly rejoined, and was at the time made a moderator of the miscellaneous forums. He, at the time, advocated merging the Serebii.net and Pokémasters forum, an idea that was not accepted. He was nonetheless made a fanfiction moderator on Serebii at that point in time.

Shortly after the Pokémasters recovered, Damian's relation with the administration there became more strained; he believed that the administrators were being far too lenient on certain posters they considered their friends, and allowed them to get away with unacceptable level of flaming. This led him to resigning as moderator of the miscellaneous forum (although he was soon after appointed moderator of the Ruby and Sapphire forum), and, in late 2002, to resign entirely as a moderator on The Pokémasters.

Bulbagarden

It was at that time Damian was informed of Archaic's attempts to reform Bulbagarden. Although he and Archaic had often opposed each other until then (on such issues as Archaic's attitude in regard to the Pokémasters fanfiction rules; Archaic allowing what Damian held to be spam in the Pokémasters shipping forum, and most recently the possible Pokémasters-Serebii merge), he offered to join the new project.

Archaic promptly accepted the offer, and Damian became one of his close advisors, first as fanfic and roleplaying moderator, then as overall moderator of all the Bulbagarden forums (and head of the Fanworks division of Bulbagarden), later as administrator, and finally as head administrator, and second in command to Archaic.

During his time at Bulbagarden, the board's fortunes were rather poor. Series of incidents, combined with the general decline of the online pokémon community, prevented a return to Bulbagarden's former glories, despite several attempts to improve activity, which, though initially succesful, soon fell apart. In January 2006, disillusioned as to Bulbagarden's fate, Damian stepped down, blaming Archaic's lack of leadership for the ongoing lack of developments.

He later changed his user name to Evil Figment.

As a fanfiction writer

In regard to fanfiction writing, Damian is best known for his fantasy stories, especially the The Greater Evil saga. Most of them featured the anime characters battling against mysterious threats against themselves, and quite often, the world. Unlike many fantasy writers, who often prefer to describe post-apocalyptic or pre-industrial worlds, Damian set most of his tales in the familiar Pokémon world, with modern computers and helicopters being just as present as swords and sorcery.

A defining characteristics of his writings was the high body count each tale featured; even main characters such as Ash, Gary and Misty died over the course of the stories. However, in many case, the characters would later return from death, leading the author to mock his own writing by having Misty declare that dead people staying dead would be an interesting novelty in the final book of the saga.

He also ventured in the field of thrillers, science-fiction and trainer tales, but his ventures in those direction remained mostly unfinished.

Achievements

Forum positions

On the Pokemasters

• Moderator, Roleplaying Forum (2000-2001)
• Moderator, Fanfiction Forum (2001-2001, 2001-2002)
• Moderator, Miscellaneous Forum (2002-2002)
• Moderator, Ruby & Sapphire Forum (2002-2002)

On Serebii.net

• Moderator, Fanfiction Forum (2002-2002, 2003-2003)

On Bulbagarden.net

• Moderator, Fanfiction Forum (2002-2003)
• Head Moderator, Fanwork Section (2003-2003)
• Forum Administrator (2003-2004)
• Head Administrator (2004-2006)

Fanfiction

Completed

• The Greater Evil, Book I-IV*, first version (2000)
• The Greater Evil, Book I-IV, second version (2001)
• Tears of the Planet (2002)

(The four book of the The Greater Evil saga are The Great Hunt, The Crimson Lotus, Time of Destiny, and World of Ruins)

Short Stories

• Amber Reflections (2002)
• Guilt and Vengeance (2000, edited 2001)

Incomplete project

• The Errors of the Past (alternatively, Past Unperfect) (2000-2002)
• Tale of the Seven (2001)
• Awakening the Earth's Fire (2001)
• Steel and Lies (2002)
• As the Shadows Fall (2002)
• Lavender (2003)
• In Light of Darkness, Book I-II (2003)
• The Blood Tamers (2004)
• The Greater Evil, Book I, third version (2005)
• Ambition's Debt (2005)

Roleplaying Games

• Pokémon School, Season II through VIII. (2000-2002) (with Mew_ryuu, Bulbasaur 11345, and several others)
• Rising Sun, and Rising Sun Neo (2002-2003)
• The Diplomacy Game, Games I through V. (With Platinum Hawke and Zhen Lin)