Aqua Jet
Boba Bitch
Approved by UU moderation & inspired by Feliburn's project
Amazing Art by Magnum
OP ripped from Moutemoute's
Good evening KM, how have you been doing?
Pretty good! How bout you
The same, I just finished building another VoltTurn team. Do you wanna introduce yourself a bit?
Sure! I'm KM, I've been around on and off on PS and Smogon for about 8 years at this point. I've pretty much always been an underused main but I like playing most lower tiers as well as formats like 1v1, monopoke, and FFA. as far as real-life goes, I've lived in Los Angeles for the last 6 or 7 years and I work in research and the entertainment industry.
That sounds very interesting. On the topic of your name, why did you choose the name Kitten Milk?
Oh god. So my original name on PS was Pleasure Kitten (which is somehow worse), but more generally throughout my entire teenage years, my usernames on every video game were some combination of the word Kitten and a random noun or adjective. I have no idea why I did it but that's the only reason there is. Fortunately, I was just able to finalize a name change to KM everywhere on smogon and PS a few months ago, so that era is mostly over.
That certainly is a story! While we're on the topic of kittens, do you prefer cats or dogs?
For sure cats, but I've actually never had either as a pet. I've been thinking about getting a cat over the last year or so, but I haven't jumped the gun yet -- if I do get a cat, it'll be named Cactus.
That's a unique name, how did you come up with it?
My boyfriend and I have a ton of plants in our apartment including a lot of cacti and succulents, so I thought it would be cute to have a cat named cactus to blend in. anything's better than pleasure kitten though.
LOL that's true. You also mentioned that you've been a UU main since you started playing Pokémon. What drew you to PS! and Smogon, and UU specifically?
I actually originally started playing on Pokemon Online, probably because I was super into the mainline games and ended up stumbling on it while looking for other ways to play. Through PO I found out about PS and Smogon and transitioned over pretty quickly. I think my attachment to UU was probably as simple as not wanting to be a normie who played OU and choosing the next available thing.
I think I speak on behalf of the community when I say I'm glad you didn't choose to main OU! You've mentioned before in the UU discord that you were in the UU council before. What was that like? Is there anything that you had wished the council had done differently while you were apart of it?
Yeah -- I was part of the UU council back in XY/ORAS. It was definitely super different to the way things are run now -- a lot of tiering decisions were made via private council vote, we banned Smeargle (lol), and all the discussion happened on Smogon VMs instead of Discord. I honestly left midway through the tier so it's hard for me to have strong opinions about what we should or shouldn't have done because ORAS UU as we know it now is so different than it was when I left.
That makes sense, did you enjoy the experience?
Yeah, it was a great experience. I always love getting to be a part of the decision making process for tiers that I care about, whether it's through being on council, contributing, or participating in suspect tests.
That's great to hear! Speaking of suspect tests, Thundurus-Therian is a hot topic right now. What are your thoughts on it? If there was a suspect test and you got reqs, do you know how you’d vote?
Thund-T is definitely the mon in the tier that most deserves to be suspected and looked at right now. I'm not 100% sure how I'd vote just yet, but I'm probably leaning towards ban. It's the most centralizing mon in the builder for sure, and similar to Thund-I I think it's only getting better as people realize the flexibility and utility its best sets can provide. My personal favourite Thund-T sets are VS / Knock / Psychic / Focus Blast, but there's at least 10 viable move combinations that can all fit for different teams and their needs.
That's all the questions I have for you now, thank you for taking the time to do this interview!
No problem! Happy to answer any other questions people might have, and thanks for the interview :)
Feel free to ask KM any questions you want!
If you have some recommendations for an interview, feel free to DM me!