hoenn-gothic

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woohoo, property damage

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But if I'm honest I could never have become a piano virtuoso, because at bottom I never wanted to be a piano virtuoso, because I always had the greatest misgivings about it and misused my virtuosity at the piano in my deterioration process, indeed I always felt from the beginning that piano players were ridiculous; seduced by my thoroughly remarkable talent at the piano, I drilled it into my piano playing and then, after one and a half decades of torture, chased it back out again, abruptly, unscrupulously. It's not my way to sacrifice my existence to sentimentality. I burst into laughter and had the piano brought to the teacher's house and amused myself for days with my own laughter about the piano delivery, that's the truth, I laughed at my piano virtuoso career, which went up in smoke in a single moment.

The Loser by Thomas Bernhard

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where am i

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Let me explain that last post while we’re waiting here in Lilycove for the ship to arrive. Yeah, I’m not repeating the Kalos landing disaster. No more free-flying between regions for Lo and I for a while.

Like a month ago I was at home watching International Geographic when this show came on about some underwater ruins in a region called Ostrale. It was pretty cool. Even Titus woke up for a bit and watched. I can’t remember ever seeing anything like that on my travels. Some of the sunken statues and things actually reminded me of the designs in the Unovan desert ruins, distantly. They didn’t really show the rest of the region, but it's different from Hoenn. Interesting architecture and diverse Pokemon population. Also there’s actual snow. 

Well. I mean it’s been what, 2 years since Kalos? Never even made it to Alola like I originally planned.

And the kid who works at the PokeMart, who I talk to now and then - Leighton - is making me nervous. Ever since he got his starter and I came back from vacation, he keeps trying to corner me for advice and pick-up battles. He follows me around everywhere like a patient cat. I don’t want to tell him to go away, exactly. I’ve sort of watched him grow up and he’s not especially annoying or otherwise interesting. He just needs a real mentor. There’s a legit gym leader on the island and he wants to hang around an awkward loser.

Although Brawly is weirdly intense. Hoenn has all the oddball gym leaders.

So I kinda made up my mind to go check this place out. We’re just gonna wing it, land in Debialos City (yay for more unpronounceable foreign names) and then wander around and find a hotel wherever. Hang around for a few weeks, maybe. Mari and some other Mons and I went swimming in the ocean to practice a bit for the underwater ruins before we left, she liked that. And Thierry’s actually excited in his strange ghostly way (progress? progress.) It’ll do them all good, to go see some new things.

And maybe Leighton will get tired of me disappearing all the time and find someone else to pick on.

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brb goin on vacation again

please don’t let there be any nonsense with murderous trainer drama this time

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[This is like 3 years outdated but I’m retroactively posting it anyway because I’m alive and too lazy to write anything new]

Big Savings is getting, uh, big. I swear in the last few months she's grown to about the size of a Tentacruel. It's getting to where I can't take her into town without getting weird looks. I'm not feeding her more or anything, and she certainly hasn't been weightlifting. I think it's just her genetics, I mean her mom was like fifteen stories tall. 

Her mom who I put down. Did I mention that? A couple months before I started this blog, this hugeass Tentacruel was terrorizing Routes 105 and 106. I think it ate a few triathletes (hooray). Coastal Watch was being their usual ineffective selves, and I was bored of being told to stay indoors and away from water, and... I've done easily more than my share of stupid things, but setting out to sea on an Azumarill while a killer sea monster is rampaging might top the list, at least in terms of recent events.

I mean, it’s something to do?

Anyway, we found it after some aimless floating. Thing was literally the size of a building. It wasn't exactly anticlimactic, but it went a lot faster than I thought it would. Basically what happened was

Wild Tentacruel used Whirlpool!

Channah used Flail!

Wild Tentacruel used a Poison Sting so massive it should qualify as a Sludge Bomb! But it missed!

Channah managed to stop spazzing and sent out Basil!

Basil spammed Discharge!

Wild Tentacruel was fried to a crisp!

When the fried seafood smell wore off, I went down the beach and told the Watch. They looked sort of upset, but hey - no more dead people, right? And that’s when I noticed this little thing following me. So I took it home and stuck it in the empty tank, which might not have been a good idea, now that I think about it.

And now she’s busy getting huge. At least she’s nothing like her mom in temperament...

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Kalos is just weird and off

I’ve always wanted to go to [Europe] but Kalos was literally the last place I’d choose to go anywhere in the world besides maybe my place of birth, idk why I went in the first place.

Also there’s a gaggle of trainers here I keep seeing over and over. They’re weird and off too.

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Little V Mills - Pokemon Champion Steven/Wallace “Epic Rock” Cover.

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fuckin beautiful

From the bagel shop in town

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Eurgh. Not happy.

This morning the doorbell woke me up and surprise, it's some bright-eyed hotshot bouncing a pokeball in his hand. Getting his sandy shoes on my rug. Wanting to battle. 6x6, no items, balls out. How about no. First of all, it's six in the fucking morning. Second, it's six in the fucking morning.

How did someone know to find my house. Then I checked around and a Mart employee admitted he told some friends that there was a” strong trainer” living in town. Which really, I wouldn't care, but he specifically called them up and told them to come around. It's probably because I said to him the other day, Yeah, I'm getting kinda bored doing nothing lately. That's the problem with small towns; everyone knows everyone and thinks it's their business to help other people.

sigh

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don mcleans "unovian pie" is stuck in my head

and by don mclean i mean don mclean my closest neighbor’s kricketune who is wandering by my house and buzzing the chorus over and over

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suddenly reminiscing about starters

So yeah let's talk about my first Pokemon because it's been ultra quiet down in Dewford and I've been surfing too much Bulbapedia lately. 

That would be Bodee, my female Rattata. Dead now, but we had some good times. Well-behaved, too, she never tried to bite strangers in the neck. She was a gift from my brother on my sixth birthday, and don’t quote me on this but I think I was trying to name her Body Slam, in a kiddie’s awkward failed attempt to make a BAMF name. We got along well enough for me to take her along for the gym circuit four years later.

My bro had the entire Pokédex to choose from, and gave me a Rattata. And it wasn’t even pedigree or anything, it was just a wild Rattata he caught on the way home. I was still excited when he gave her to me, but I kept thinking – Rattata? He knew I liked Dratini and Cloyster and Vaporeon, why not something like them? But I get it now. Besides the fact that he was a huge troll.

First of all, vanity. No special Pokemon ego boost for me, I had enough of it. Second, I wouldn’t have gotten the full experience, or at least the full experience as how he wanted me to undergo it; with a “better” starter, I wouldn’t have been under as much pressure to diversify my team, and probably be prone to keeping it in my party all the time, preventing others from getting a chance to shine in the lead spot, narrowing my own adaptability. The more varieties you work with, the easier it is to train anything you run into in the wild. A truly skilled, well-rounded trainer can wrangle a championship out of any team. Every Pokémon has potential, even my lowly Rattata.

tl;dr, my starter wasn’t top percentage, but she helped me get there.

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So, um. Really early this morning I got a call from Wattson, the Gym Leader. I think he mis-dialed, because he guffawed into my ear about something and then hung up after I mumbled something in response. Pretty sure it was him since I have met the guy, and he laughs like an obese loon. Not going to do anything about it, of course, but I'm just wondering what he was doing up at 5:30 AM.

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Some people are meant to be dead ends. That much is obvious. As it is with any other trait, we're born to exist along a wide spectrum of potential. The simple point of certain persons is to just fail at life, and add the fruits of our suffering to God's crazy-ass creation on our way down. People get a much deeper appreciation for beautiful scenery after driving through the ghetto.

Even if a particular contribution is just a shitty bad joke in a footnote that no one will see unless they're bored as fuck, and might get erased before anyone actually lays eyes on it.

I used to think something went wrong when I was a baby. Like the plane ride to the [US] somehow fucked with my head or something. I can't really deny it anymore, though. What went wrong was me. That’s it.

When they asked Jesus if Bartimaeus was born blind because of sin, he flat-out said no. He was made blind for a different purpose. I understand now.

So much for hating Calvinists. (They're still ass-eating theological terrorists, though.)

A while back my therapist told me to write a diary about my anxiety and "depression". First and only entry, I wrote that it felt like my soul died in slow motion. I figured it was poetic enough. It was either that or try in vain to put into words how little of a fuck I give about literally anything that came out of her mouth. Guess I could've drawn a Donphan's dick on paper and be done with it, but then she'd be mad and that's too much work to deal with.

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That awkward moment when you remember you have thirty-five Wobbuffets in the PC.

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Well that got morbid.

Has anyone been to the Sendoff Spring in Sinnoh? That is the quietest place ever. I haven't been there in a couple years and the memory of the place is still vivid. Sometimes when I'm sitting at home without any music on (it does actually happen) and the ocean's not acting up outside, the silence reminds me. When I went there for the first time, a Golduck snuck up on us and didn’t make a sound until Basil noticed. Odd.

We tried making it a training spot, but it was just unnerving. I'm used to being the only human for miles around; my old team and I used to spend weeks at a time in the mountains in Johto (as is proper to Red-wannabes). But at the Sendoff Spring it felt too much like trespassing on hallowed ground. Which technically, if the local myths are true, it kind of was.

Speaking of death. Never been to a funeral. My grandparents died while I was doing the League thing. And honestly, when you're twelve and have the world at your fingertips, it's hard to care when people you only saw a couple times a year die hundreds of miles away. I mean I did burst into tears, I remember that vividly because it was the first time my Seadra gave me a (side)hug. Other than a good cry, nada.

What I'm really not proud of, though, is how I angled around my brother and parents to avoid going to the funeral. Can't even remember what excuse it was, something about going to a gym trainer workshop. Part of it was being afraid of seeing the caskets, most of it was dreading the awkward dullness.

Anyway this is getting boring so I’m done now.

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I had a dream last night in which I was riding a glass elevator to the 100th floor, and back down again. Ugh.

Other people have nightmares about falling. I have nightmares about going up. Psychoanalyze that.