this isn't the time to use that!

episode twenty-one - candle in the wind tunnel

Some readers, upon encountering my awkward flesh body (the cocoon from which my true fleshless self slithers forth and rejoins the internet like the angry spirit of a polluted river returning to the sea), have taken the great kindness of congratulating me on my successes in the playthrough so far. To these kind words I have two points to make.

First: are people aware of Pokemon ROM Hacks? It’s where people on the internet take apart Pokemon games and modify them for fun. There are some where you play as Team Rocket; some with completely fan-made regions; even ones with original Pokemon, types, and moves. The downside to this, of course, is that the only people more mental than those who make games for a living are those who make games for free.

i chooes DARK LUGA! Draco_xx_darkangel97 Shouted loudly! hymeniorny gaped shockedly, WTF, wen did LUGA becum VAMPIRE?

But the kind of ROM Hacks I want to talk about are the randomised ones - where Pokemon are randomly distributed across the game without reference to natural habitats, so it’s possible to encounter any Pokemon in any bit of tall grass.

For example, the beautiful natural fauna of Pallet Town.

These hacks come to my mind, when people tell me how well I’m Nuzlocking, because they really show up the way the original, unmodified FireRed is deliberately designed to be easy. The designers made sure, for instance, that Mankeys roam the city before the weak-to-Fighting-type Rock gym. The grass paths north of the Water gym city have a 50% chance of encountering Oddishes. And now, literally twenty steps from the front door of the Electric gym - there is the Diglett cave.

Well, isn’t this a surprise! The solution to your immediate problems!

Unlike even Oddishes in Cerulean, which have a 50% chance of appearing on two routes, the Diglett Cave is unapologetically foolproof. You have an 80% chance of finding a Diglett. The other 20% are Dugtrios.

I’m starting to realise why Lt. Surge barricaded himself in.

So that’s the first of two points I’d like to make about my progress so far. I’m doing well because the game is actively helping me - so I don’t know if I deserve any congratulations for simply following explicit instructions better than my 8-year-old self (who Thundershocked his way through Brock’s Onix 1 hit point at a time). 

Secondly, while I’m on the subject of the Diglett Cave, Suseigh died horribly.

Long-time readers will remember Suseigh the Jigglypuff, and her invaluable (and only) contribution as the “capture specialist” - chiefly because, as I’ve said before, she can put people to sleep and can’t hit hard enough to kill. Naturally, I switched her in to help me grab my only possible Ground-type.

I know some of you will question my decision to send a physically weak, seductive, musical Pokemon to fight something based on a real-world animal that is traditionally known to be both deaf and blind.

Crossed with Mr Potatohead.

But you know what? Blame is cheap, retrospect is easy, and I stand by my actions that day. Mistakes were made - I don’t deny that - but when it came down to the line, all I could do was make the most informed choices possible given what I could know about the situation on the ground.

Well, the situation under the ground…since we went into a cave system to fight an enemy with a move called Earthquake. It makes the earth quake, and apparently, scales its power randomly each time - on the Richter scale.

POP POP

I’m unsure as to whether the damage is really magnified ten times with each magnitude, as the Pikachu depicted is simply one-shotted; but just for comparison’s sake, the largest earthquake in recorded history occurred in 1960 in Chile and displaced over 2 million people. That was a magnitude 9.5.

Nevertheless, I manage to capture this catastrophic doombringer of a mole by tagging Anna in after Suseigh fell. Apparently, Earthquake doesn’t affect Pokemon who can fly! What, I was just supposed to have known that?

Every little earthquake, catch it in my hand, I won’t say a word

Mistakes were made. I admitted it when we pulled Suseigh’s body from the rubble - she looked deflated, like a whoopee cushion used to prank a corpulent man - and I admit it now.

But if my team are unhappy with my executive decisions, they can’t be half as angry with me as they must be with their new teammate. I named him Simon. I have to hope Jeremy is willing to work with the mole that murdered his girlfriend.

I have to hope, because I haven’t tested it. Jeremy is uninvolved in Simon’s solo destruction of Lt. Surge.

The team watched as Simon’s victory got narrower and narrower. I didn’t ask them to help; but nobody volunteered.

episode twenty - the staryu-spangled banner

Reaching the next gym is a complicated process. First, there’s a tree. Thanks to my recent run-in with a ship-sick shit-ship captain that I would rather not relive, I now have HM01 Cut. I proceed to teach it to Sylvia Meowth, apparently through osmosis, by gluing the CD to her head.

Sylvia has learned Game.of.Thrones.S03E01.HDTV.x264.mp4! Oh shit wrong one

Not only is the gym barricaded with birches, the gym leader inside has also locked himself away, with two switches randomly distributed among the bins scattered along the floor. And if you pick the wrong one, the whole thing resets somehow - the bins refill with rubbish and the switches switch positions. Somehow. Maybe they make me close my eyes and count to ten?

Why is there a soiled nappy in this gym full of grown men?

Considering that the most challenging thing about navigating Misty’s gym was not falling into the water that you can’t fall into, I think it’s pretty rich of Lieutenant Surge to make me search through an endless grid of rubbish for the honour of battling him. What kind of person thinks up this shit?

This kind.

The Lieutenant’s obvious psychopathy seems severely, publicly, and inexcusably misdiagnosed by a world where psychics actually exist.

But not apparently cautious enough to take the key in with him.

Okay, first of all, why are you people always hanging around the front of gyms? Secondly, how does this weird trap puzzle help him be less paranoid about- what exactly is he paranoid about? Recycling? Clean visitors? Performing his professional duties by not sealing himself off from all potential challengers with a laser wall?

Surge’s Fort-Knoxian (yet highly penetrable) security is perhaps indicative of his origins from a universe where Fort Knox exists. Never mind le waiter on the S.S. Anne; Surge pretty much throws all questions about fictional nationality out of the window. That is, if his gym had windows, instead of antimissile tank plating.

This sign is structurally supported by four unobtrusive fence-posts!

A few generations after this, both in the games and in its audience, the Pokemon games actually do make a pseudo-American setting - Unova, which is meant to be New York City. But Surge isn’t the Lightning Unovan. He’s American. What’s more, he’s an American military presence on Kanto, having fought a war here in the recent past, operating a base that’s tightly shut off from the native public. With European allies.

At least it’s not “British Gentlemen Tucker from South Guildford, Surrey”.

I know I’m meant to speculate, at this point, on the popular fan theory that a recent PokeWar wiped out our parents, but I think that would do a disservice to the total breakdown in fictionality that is Surge. That is even more of a warp in the Matrix than having my mother’s posters explain the controls, though I would say it’s on par with your mother because yo momma so fat she were a World War Two peace treaty. 

Not that any of this, of course, makes him any harder to beat.

episode nineteen - you bin some you lose some

We’re at a pretty fancy party on a luxury cruise ship, so naturally we end up fishing drugs out of a trash can.

As my recent (undocumented) playthrough of Bioshock Infinite will attest, video game protagonists have an insatiable need to gather all their necessary nutrients from either the corpses of their enemies, or rubbish bins. In Bioshock’s case I did have to question who was chucking away all this perfectly serviceable food (which I had to eat the moment I picked any up) as well as ammo, mana potions and actual cash.

Despite my ardent wishes that the third PokeBall on the Professor’s desk would one day roll off the flat surface - you know, like it should - and into the trashcan where I’d be able to filch it, FireRed usually keeps its bins pretty clean.

The S.S. Anne is a rare exception, presumably because it’s populated by posh people who would throw good stuff away. Here are only some of the things I liberated from the Purgatory of used tissue paper and zip-lock bags of Growlithe poop:

 Chesto Berry

What do you mean? You just said it was a berry.

“This is not a berry,” said the chief dessert cook (I’m sure there’s a fancy French word for it, wait, I’m opening Wikipedia on another tab) pâtissier. “I’m lining this cake with soft, sweet, juicy little orgasms and you bring me this shit? What the fuck is a Chesto Berry? Is this just a chestnut? This is a raw fucking chestnut. What made you think this would be nice to bite into? Who trained you, an animated rat? You’re fired. You’re fired from this ship. You’re fired from this industry. Get out.” The pâtissier contemplated throwing the chestnut into the 8-year-old Junior Masterchef’s face, but reconsidered as there were no cameras present, so what would be the point. He threw it in the bin.

 Great Ball

She straightened her gown unhappily. “I can’t believe you lied to me.”

He was too distracted to actually look at her, but his voice was incredulous. “Honey, what do you mean? I’ve never lied to you. Oi! You! Yes, you.” He began to run towards the figure he’d so suddenly and verbally accosted, leaving her trailing behind his excitement. “Don’t try to deny it, I saw you look me in the eyes. Now let’s get ‘em out.”

She tried to arrange herself neatly as she sat down to wait. “When you said you were throwing a great ball on a luxury liner for me, this wasn’t what I had in mind.”

“Honey, what else could I have meant? Now watch me go!” He pulled his arm back, and threw his Great Ball towards his opponent. “Horsea! I choose you!”

“I thought-” But he wasn’t listening. The battle was underway. “No, Honey, there isn’t enough room to-” Some of the Water Gun damaged her gown.

Later, after a couple of bottles, she pried the ball from his insensible hands and headed to the top deck. She clicked the button to open, and watched as the Horsea fell into the sea with a plop. She held the Great Ball up to the sun, and looked mournfully at its now empty depths, wondering if she could climb inside it. Maybe then he would see her - really see her.

She threw it in the bin.

 TM44 - Rest

A CD case? Are we installing Windows 95?

“Hello and thank you for calling the PokeMart helpline-“

“Yes, hi-“

“-if you’re placing an order, please say order. If you’re experiencing problems with your purchase, please say problems-“

“Problems-“

“-If you’re Professor Oak and the small child we press-ganged into delivering your order has died, please say oh god you bastards what’ve you done what’ve you done. Please enunciate clearly after the beep.” BEEP.

“Oh for fuck’s- problems!”

“I’m sorry. I don’t understand ‘Oh for fuck’s- problems’. Please enunciate clearly.” BEEP.

“PROBLEMS!”

“Connecting you to a sales representative now.” BEEP. “Hello. What seems to be the problem?”

“I bought this Technical Machine. Number 44. I was told it was a Psychic-type move. It’s not.”

“It’s not what?”

“It’s not a TM, it’s just a regular CD. Also, ‘Psychic’ is misspelt.”

“It’s abbreviated, sir. What’s on the CD?”

“It’s meant to teach my Jigglypuff the move Rest, but it’s just an Enya album intercut with the sounds of a waterfall.”

“And does it work? Be honest.”

“…yes. My Jigglypuff stopped singing and went to sleep.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“Now Enya is singing.”

He threw it in the bin.

Puke 

There’s a Chesto Berry in here, too. What’s left of one.

Hah! I see what you did there, FireRed. Condition the player with video game logic into repeatedly doing something that, in real life, would be illogical and repulsive - and then mock their resulting cognitive dissonance. Very good, FireRed. It’s almost like you’re doing my job for me.

In the real world, of course, I wouldn’t have looked. I would, you know, act like a normal person, instead of going through people’s bins. I shouldn’t let a video game drive me to irrational and degrading levels of greed. Lesson learned. Now let’s treat this game with some respect.

We’ll talk to the Captain. People do that.

You poor thing! There, there.

I am feeling sympathy for this fellow human being! This is so emotionally immersive!

I- what? No-

Why are you punishing me? I did what you asked! I did- urgh! Oh God why

Is that…a reward? Lesson…learned? I can’t tell any more. What are you trying to say, FireRed? I don’t understand!

At least I know not to look through bins again. That’s like the one thing I learned out of all this with any certainty. No more bins. Nuh-uh. I’m just going to continue my Pokemon journey as an upright, upstanding member of society. Now, onwards - to the next gym!

why

episode eighteen - bitch bonjour

Bonjour, bitch.

That’s pretty fluent French for a guy who shares a house of one room and no beds with his sister. I think it was pretty clear literally from the game’s spawn point that I have an X-Box and he doesn’t, which is a twelve-year-old’s equivalent of the 1%/99% class difference. So I’m not sure where he’s getting off implying he’s posher than I am.

“What did you have to do to get Bill’s ticket?”

Obviously he’s out to impress today, and there’s nothing like climbing on a giant boat to compensate for the fact your hometown hasn’t even got a gym (so embarrassing bro). I can tell from the effort he’s put into speaking the French language - and the French body language.

Bitch: Please.

I would just like to point out that he used to pose like this:

“Hey! Which button opens this thing?”

I think it’s worth pointing out that Game Freak specifically created a posher-looking sprite to use in - and only in - the S.S. Anne battle. His eyes are closed so he never has to see anything that isn’t fine art or prostitutes. He has one hand raised flat in the air as if to say: if I were a waiter, I would be a crazy good waiter, because I’d be able to pronounce all the items on the menu where there’s stuff on top of the e’s.

(I don’t think it’s worth pointing out that, since I moved the game to my laptop, new screenshots are no longer superimposed with the controls.)

Bitch and I battle. The usual business.

“Absorb” is much scarier now that Esther’s got that thing on her head.

 Esther’s Absorb > Wartortle 

 Jane’s Karate Chop > Raticate 

 Anna’s Pursuit > Kadabra 

Since we have no Ice, Electric, or Rock moves, Jeremy deals with Pidgeotto the old-fashioned way. WITH FIRE AND BLOOD.

It was super-efficient.

episode seventeen - wee wee civil play

alternative title: like one of your french goldeens

I suddenly find myself with an invite to an exclusive cruise ship party, and it looks like I’m allowed to bring a few +1s. To be specific, +6 of my most experience-hungry battle beasts. This party will be off the hook (on my belt (that carries my Pokeballs (which release deadly monsters to fight to the death))).

Before that though, I should gives thanks where it’s due. We get the tickets courtesy of Bill, for whose taste the party’s just a bit too fancy, apparently. He prefers more casual parties, like fancy dress! Sort of. A very specific kind of fancy dress. And more conventions than parties. Okay, more the orgy afterwards.

(One day, when an openly furry President is elected into the White House, the “humour” in this blog will be archived as a piece of extremely distasteful discrimination.)

“I’ll stay here…having a ‘good’ time.”

So just how fancy is this do, anyway? There’s basically dogfighting going on in every room, so it doesn’t exactly sound like the Diamond Jubilee. But oh boy am I wrong, I realise to my embarrassment, as I am greeted by this representative of high-class hospitality services:

J’ai le Tour Eiffel dans mon pantalons.

Obviously, the level of culture here is off the charts - the Top 40 charts, at least. I bet ‘le waiter’ listens to instrumental versions of Lady Gaga songs. I bet he prefers them.

Considering the last time I saw such genuine French people was watching Les Miserable, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that, two steps later, I’m confronted with Downton Abbey.

My massive red fire lizard forgot to wear a waistcoat! Or anything! Maggie Smith will be furious.

All this just begs the question: where do these people come from? Where does the S.S. Anne sail to? Is there a France-equivalent or England-equivalent Pokemon country the same way that Kanto is meant to represent, er, the Kanto region of Japan?

If so, why do all these foreigners only use Pokemon native to Kanto? In Gold/Silver there’s an S.S. Aqua which, apart from being a terrible name for a ship, sails between Johto and Kanto and therefore carries many Johto-specific Pokemon.

The Lord Granthams on this ship mostly just use Growlithes and Ponytas, who were probably very useful during English (to avoid spoonerisms, don’t read the next bit out loud) country hunts in that they could cook the meat as they chased it. It looks like they’re mostly being used for Pokemon battles now that the Vulpix-hunting Bill has passed the Lords.

Wouldn’t fancy riding a Ponyta, though. Guv’na.

Much like Downton Abbey, downstairs is where the real drama is cooking. And by “real drama” I mean “food”, because obviously the help are both less interesting and less attractive.

Pamplemousse.

The cook is spot-on, I think - a lot of people have problems understanding foreign cuisine, especially if it’s so outlandish that it includes ingredients that are foreign to this whole reality where Pokemon exist but eels don’t.

Is the S.S. Anne a spaceship?

Okay. That’s pretty fancy.

episode sixteen - recap kneecap

So TITTTUT can hardly be accused of moving too quickly. But even as we finally move on from Cerulean after sixteen episodes, the game world at this point expands at such a dizzying pace that it seems like a good point to stop and take stock. Assume the brace position; it’s a kneecap recap.

(Take stock of what, I’m not entirely sure, as we haven’t got anything to sell. Except, that is, for our friends and commercial sponsors over at FeelGoodHealGood, the knock-off massage chairs that’ll knock your socks off! They’re half made out of recycled vibrators, which means they’re fun, filled with positive energy, and are environmentally friendly! The other half is made from unrecycled vibrators. FeelGoodHealGood.)

Let’s start with some of the changes to our team:

With the tragic loss of Alistair and the inclusion of Sylvia the Meowth, the team is at an all-time oestrogen high, assuming female Pokemon have oestrogen, which is the best we can do, considering we find out in Gold/Silver that nobody in this other Pokemon-obsessed universe knows how baby Pokemon are made. In short, Jeremy is the only boy left, as I still refuse to use Wayne the bloody Zubat.

This makes our current Significant Six:

Also of note is that Esther learns the Poison-type move Acid, which might be what’s now constantly dribbling out of her purpled mouth. Anna learns the Dark-type move Pursuit, which sounds just terrifying enough to suit her completely.

Remember me saying, a few paragraphs ago, that the game world expands at a dizzying pace? By that what I mean is, from Cerulean, the road east is blocked by a tree, and the road south is blocked by guards preventing travel from all four sides of Saffron City. There’s an underground tunnel that runs all the way underneath Saffron and comes out the other end at Vermilion, which suggests either Saffron is often blockaded, or has been for ages.

Verbillion City is similarly surrounded. The south and west are coastline, the north is where we came from, and the east has got Snorlax sleeping on the road. Maybe that old man from Viridian borrowed one of Bill’s costumes.

However blocked up the paths seem to be, I applaud Kanto for being such a tease of a level design. Rather than directing you down one road and holding your hand, or letting you wander wherever you want and deflate all tension, Pokemon FireRed shows you glimpses of the exciting bigger world - and then clutters it up. 

To keep track of the clutter, I take out Bitch’s sister’s map, and annotate it thus:

She won’t mind.

So it looks like we’re stuck in Verbajillion City for now. Next week, we’re on a boat - don’t worry, it won’t take us anywhere either.

episode fifteen - out of time and fashion

Though sadly basically useless for anything else, Suseigh the Jigglypuff is serving admirably as a capture specialist, precisely because she can’t hit hard enough to kill anything. She puts my Route 25 Nuzlocke lottery - Route 24 yielded another fucking Weedle, so I killed it - to sleep and slowly pummels her down to red HP with little smacks. 

“Zzzzzz” “MEGAPUNCH” “Zzzzz” “MEGAPUNCH” “Zzzzz”

Esther the Oddish, whose new place in the team shunts Wayne the Zubat into the computer because fuck that guy, goes up eight levels in about half an hour thanks to the Mountaineers that litter Route 25 and can’t understand the point of using anything except Rock Pokemon. The Grass-type move Absorb heals her for half of the damage it deals - which is a fair bit when it’s one-shotting Onixes ten times her size and four levels above her. PokeCentres only slow her down.

Her feet look like adorable little musical notes and also she will crush solid rock monsters.

Much as I suspected, she cuts like a hot knife through the flesh of Water-type Pokemon when we storm Cerulean City Gym. She defeats Misty’s two sidekicks without switching out, without using any other move, and without taking any damage she doesn’t heal right away. Much to the dismay of “Swimmer♂ Luis”, who I’m only mentioning because his name is “Swimmer♂ Luis”.

“Swimmer♂ Luis”.

Esther♀ uses Absorb so much that I♂ am surprised there’s still moisture in the air, let alone the pool. Not that it would make swimming in it any more difficult, given that this ridiculous pool is filled with large metal poles suspending an oddly-shaped and totally unnecessary walkway with circular, redundant paths.

After I win, I will be allowed to use HM01 Cut outside of battle. And also to push her off that podium.

Misty herself is a bit more of a challenge. Staryu, like everyone else here, gets Absorbed into a dried husk, but Starmie has unexpected strong defences. Each Absorb only takes a quarter or so of her health, and Misty cheats with a Potion halfway through. Starmie also uses Swift, an adjective that doesn’t sound like it does any damage, but turns out to be some kind of devastating Quick Attack v2.0.

I switch Alistair in to tank while I feed Esther a Super Potion, and he goes down as the first death of TITTTUT.

Noooooooooooooooooooo more Alistair. Moving on.

After which, Starmie gets finished off by one last Absorb. And that’s the story of how I conquered this gym - once again - using only the one Pokemon, and from that Pokemon, only the one move.

What this battle teaches us - besides that Sophie’s Choice would’ve been much easier if one of the children had been a giant wasp you never liked - is that building your whole team around one type of Pokemon and then allowing a man to stand at the gates of your gym to tell trainers which types your whole team is weak against is not a sustainable way to maintain power and prestige.

“My other policy is a promise to install electrical sockets underwater so people can charge their iPods!”

I really do hope future Pokemon games find more interesting and challenging ways to organise Gym themes other than Type. Misty’s attitudes and policies seem more and more out-of-touch by the second. It seems almost…90s.

Come on, Vogue! (Please? Anyone?)

The youth of Kanto are already streets ahead of their elders, ditching the traditional institutions for new, commonsense ways to battle. It won’t be long before the Gym Leaders of the future are steamrolling us with multi-type legendaries.

When he’s Gym Leader, he’ll be doing the Gangnam Shake, Harlem-Style.

Retrospectively, Misty’s defeat to the weapon of mass absorption that is Esther seems inevitable. She’s simply too behind the times. She’s old-school.

Misty (♀?)

Though of course, not as old as some.

episode fourteen - that is not my fetish

Where are all the people who don’t care for it? Where are all the Pokephobes? Are they hiding? Were they purged? Or - and I think this is the I will obey most harmless yet plausible explanation - did they voluntarily board themselves up in these creepy door-less houses out of consideration for those noble and righteous Pokemon-loving souls who shouldn’t have to put up with their disgusting pus-ridden free-will-insistent faces?

Why do I feel so woozy?

Nevertheless, back to the original point, it still doesn’t begin to explain the phenomenon of the Pokemaniac. Why are we pointing this one guy out as being in any way exceptional in his fervour? What does he do that’s so different?

Oh, wow, really? You mean, like these guys?

Which is why they all use Rattatas and Ekans.

So why else do they call Bill the Pokemaniac?

Who wouldn’t, indeed? Certainly not these guys, down at the Vermilion City Pokemon Fan Club. Nobody ever talks about these guys and how much they love Pokemon - which, if you ever talk to them, is understandable. But Bill’s reputation still isn’t.

How vocal is the Chairman, I hear you say? Well, I can’t tell you precisely, because the number of textboxes he spoke outnumbered all of the fingers on one of my hands and then all of the other ones on the other hand, and that’s just about the limit of how far I can count. But I do know that, at the end of it, he was so grateful to my patiently listening (or spamming A) that he did this:

Let’s just remind ourselves how much a bicycle seems to cost in Kanto.

I…don’t think there are million-dollar vouchers. I think what the Chairman has given me, here, is a cheque. For listening to him talk about his Pokemon.

That’s exactly how vocal he is - you can put a figure on it. Specifically, $1,000,000.

So bring it on, Bill. Unless you can beat that price, I’m going right in there and stripping you of your title. Pokemaniac, indeed - what a load of ol’ hipster nonsense. Everybody who likes Pokemon is as good as you: the criminals, the Fan Club, the Bug-Catchers, the Lasses, even the Youngsters with their shorts and their top percentile of Rattatas. Who are you to crown yourself king of this hobby? Who are you to exclude people, or put people down? Who do the fuck do you think you are, to call yourself the Pokemani-

Errrrr. Okay.

Yeah, fine, whatever. Let’s go with that.

Dude, I can see the zipper on the back…and on the front. Why…why is there a zipper there? No, never mind, don’t tell me.

NOPE.

Bill is the Pokemaniac.

Bill is the Pokemaniac.

episode thirteen - Hello Everyone Loves Pokemon

Bill. How do I even begin to explain Bill?

“One time, Bill punched me in the face. It was awesome.”

However little I like to reflect on how I spend my spare time, Pokemon is undeniably a game designed for children. To that end, it can’t afford to be particularly subtle about where the player needs to go next (drunk old men on sidewalks notwithstanding). Hence the whole population of Cerulean catching some knock-off Bieber Fever for the “Pokemaniac”.

As a way of tempting you to fight a bajillion trainers for the privilege of visiting his house, however, the whole “Pokemaniac” concept isn’t brilliant.

“Subtlety” varies from generation to generation.

Why? Not to disparage the intense realism of the Pokemon games or anything, but because I don’t think there’s been a single person I’ve encountered who’s had nothing to do with Pokemon. I just find it hard to believe anybody in this world can be more manic about Pokemon than anybody else, and anyone who claims to be is a certified Pokehipster.

“I’m really into Dugtrios. You’ve probably never seen one, they’re pretty underground.”

This is obvious from the way that every facet of this human society is infested with Pokemania. It’s everywhere. It’s mass hysteria. I’ve never seen any surfaces that weren’t inscribed with something about Pokemon.

Drink it in.

And that’s just the written form. Humans don’t even do sports any more. All the gyms are filled with people battling Pokemon, like we’ve just accepted our physical inferiorities as a species. Even art - even art.

ALL I WANTED WAS A LANDSCAPE

Where are all the people who don’t care for it? Where are all the Pokephobes? Are they hiding? Were they purged? (Is that where my father went?)

What if this isn’t mass hysteria? What if we’re all being controlled, somehow? There are Psychic Pokemon, aren’t there? And there’s a move called Hypnosis. What if the Pokemon aren’t the pets?

Oh my God. Wait - what is God? I can’t remember - why can’t I remember? It was something - no - no - what else have they taken?

Sudden I remember Mother - her art - press L if you need help - glitches in the matrix - she was trying to warn me - what if it’s too late

what if

what if

what if

no what are they doing help help help

 

who am I

welcome to the world of pokemon

am I a boy or a girl

episode twelve - cerulean city blues, part two

[Previously, on Cerulean City Blues.]

“Team Rocket attacks Cerulean citizens. It’s nearly everyday, now.” Everyone turns subtly away, all absorbed in something else, all pretending - who’s he talking to? Not me, not me. Crazy old man; you can’t say this stuff out loud.

My hand hovers at my belt, fingering the leather button there like it’s an itch. I snap the holster on, off, on, off. 

The old man sees. “Young man-“

“Nervous twitch,” I growl, and stop.

The nurse approaches, smiling, an angel - sure. She’ll heal your Pokemon back to full health. For now. One day she won’t, and men will go mad. She puts a hand on the old man’s shoulder, and looks at the people milling around her hospital.

“It only takes an instant to heal your Pokemon back to full health,” she sings, “so why the fuck do you people hang around here all day?”

[We haven’t got theme music, but if we did, it would go dooo-di-doo-di-doo-di-do-do-do-dooo-di-doo-di-doo-doo-doo-yeah!-da-di-doo-di-doo-di-doo.]

“Never trust anyone,” Anna advises as we approach the policeman. “Call it a bird’s-eye-view.”

How’s that, then?

“When you fly over people, you realise: anyone could be full of shit.”

Even without Anna’s keen hunting senses, I could smell a Rattata.

Right…and who lives here, exactly?

“The people here were robbed!”

“It’s time to go,” says Anna.

The policeman’s claims are dubious for two reasons. The first being that the only pedestrian path out of the city runs through that house. The only possible way someone can live there and not blockade the city would be to operate a very open-door policy. Which would make robbing them very easy, I guess. Shit, that makes sense.

“Sherlock-fucking-Holmes,” says Anna.

The second reason is that I have a body with legs and eyes, so I’m completely capable of walking five steps around the house and peeking over the fence. Unlike, apparently, the police.

Returning to the scene of the crime? Did he ever leave? Is the crime even over?

“Even our police force has trouble with the Rockets!” Yeah, apparently they’re invisible to you. This utter disaster in law enforcement and urban planning (whether corrupt or just incompetent) is obviously what happens when a city elects, as its form of government, a bunch of cheerleaders in bikinis to splash around in a pool all day.

Since the south-east exit is blocked, I try the northern route, or what is called the “Nugget Bridge”.

“People”.

Apparently because, once you beat the string of five trainers living on it, you win a Gold Nugget as a prize. But even more suspect than that is the “bridge” part, as it seems to have water on either side of it, but not on the bit it’s actually built over.

At the end of it, the person running the contest turns out to be an undercover Team Rocket member, a concept that only makes sense in a world where criminal organisations wear uniforms. Ugly, black, full-body uniforms with hats, gloves, and boots that prevent almost any possible skin exposure. There’s a line between sun-safe and sunstroke, and Team Rocket has crossed it.

Fuck da fashion police.

Possibly because they know trying to convince someone to wear that involves more persuasion than actually getting people to commit crimes, their recruitment process seems to be hypnosis through persistence. If you talk enough at them, eventually their brain tissue will deteriorate enough from the boredom that they’ll accept.

I leave you with this compiled (but unedited) horror. Sheesh. At least I split my blog entries in two when they get too long.

Someone never made the debating team.