#and completion of the old pokedexes like

[zombiepedia]

dream job would be to play pokemon for a living but i don't have the gall to get on stream and start talking so i don't think i ever will

[midnight-rice]

the people have spoken! Furret walks again (though on two legs in this gen!)

I did a little extra research since it's been a long while since I used the pokewalker, and it looks like Normal is an advantageous type at the Town Outskirts location, so that's where we're going :) You can even find wild Furret there! Though this particular one is my Sucker Punching buddy from a team of underused mons I used sometimes in the Battle Arcade.

I plan on switching up who I'm walking about once a week, so Cyndaquil will be up next. The goal is to eventually unlock the final location, Quiet Cave, where there is a chance of a wild Spiritomb encounter (a mon I never got for my dex!) But if I'm understanding the guide right, I need another 86,662 watts (w) to unlock that place (1 w = 20 steps). Good thing I walk a lot at work 😅

[pokemonheritageposts]

It sucks that I have nowhere near enough time or energy to make a fangame because I have such a good idea for a direct sequel to the Johto games and I can't stop rotating it in my brain. Anyway I just spent the last 8 hours typing up the entire plot for no particular reason

Pokemon Blaze Gold and Storm Silver

-Box mascots are Entei and Raikou, but new formes with Ho-Oh/Lugia's wings respectively plus added motifs from each Pokemon, Fire/Flying and Electric/Flying

-Regional Pokedex has all Kanto/Johto Pokemon minus the Kanto starters available, plus every new evolution to a Kanto/Johto Pokemon up to Gen 4

-Start in Camellia Town, a new town south of Route 29, loosely based on Toyohashi

-Rival 1 is your neighbour, Maya, who has major chuuni vibes, tells you Prof Elm has returned from a trip and that you should go ask him for a Pokemon, declares herself the best trainer ever despite having no Pokemon

-Start traveling to New Bark Town but get interrupted by Professor Elm upon entering the grass

-He reluctantly agrees to take you to his lab on Maya's insistence

-At his lab you meet his kid who is also his assistant, Rival 2, who is the opposite gender version of the player character. Following old traditions I'm gonna say the male character default name is Blaze and the female character default name is Storm. I'm gonna refer to the rival as Blaze going forward but it depends on your PC.

-Elm says he was going to offer one of the three to Blaze, but we can have the other two.

-Blaze gets nervous and indecisive and asks us to pick first, Maya says it doesn't matter which one they get because she will win no matter what. Maya picks the starter that's super effective against yours, Blaze picks the one it's weak to. Maya immediately challenges you to a battle.

-After you win, Maya declares that this is jist a roadblock and that she's going to take on the gym challenge and become champion. Elm gets wistful remembering the PC from the original games, and then decides to ask you to retrieve a package from another professor in Cherrygrove City.

-Route 46 now has wild Pikachu, plus a new part of Dark Cave featuring all Pokemon from the Violet City side as the original location will not be accessible until much later. Phanpy and Teddiursa are also available in their respective Crystal version locations (I have no idea why HGSS removed this inprovement). Paras is also now available on Route 30. These changes have been added so that you are not completely fucked if you didn't pick Chikorita.

-Cherrygrove City is now much larger, featuring a port, and a new Pokemon Gym. You go to the house Elm indicated but Blaze comes out and says the professor is out, and that they need to go look for him.

-On Route 30, you see Professor Oak standing in front of a cliff face dividing the route in half. He tells you that 6 years ago, a great cave suddenly sprung from the ground, causing great devastation. Nobody knows how, and it should have been impossible. He then tells you to come with him to get the parcels Elm asked for.

-Upon returning and being handed the parcels, Blaze asks you to battle him. When you win, he gets nervous and asks you what you think it takes to be a good trainer, before leaving.

-When you all return to Professor Elm, he hands you and Blaze the newest Pokedex which was in the package from Oak. He asks you to fill out the dex. After Blaze leaves to go catch Pokemon, he suggests you could try the gym challenge like Maya is.

-You run into your mother in front of the entrance to Camellia Town. After explaining the situation, she gives you the Poketch and encourages you.

-When you get to Cherrygrove Gym, Maya comes out and declares she beat the gym leader easily (though she is clearly worn out), and says she's going to get on a ferry to go take on Cianwood Gym.

-Inside, the Gym Leader, Akua, is a cheerful, portly middle-aged lady wearing a blue floral patterned sundress. Her team is a Lv12 Chinchou and a Lv14 Corsola. Upon winning, she grants you the Shore Badge.

-Upon leaving, a boat has returned to the port. You can interact with it and travel to Cianwood City. You arrive at the new Cianwood Port inside Cliff Edge Gate. However, Chuck is blocking the entrance to Cianwood City proper. He asks you to go after his son, Hurley, who ran to the Safari Zone saying something about Team Rocket - which is strange, since Team Rocket disappeared 10 years ago.

-The same Pokemon as usual are available on Routes 47/48, but only their first stages, and levelled down. Miltank has been replaced with Murkrow to make Dark-types accessible earlier in game.

-You see Hurley in front of the Safari Zone. He is a young boy with a buzzcut, tatami pants, and a sarashi chest wrap. He is surrounded by a group of Team Rocket grunts. Team Rocket are trying to kidnap all of the Pokemon out of the Safari Zone. Hurley is trying to take on all the Rocket Grunts himself. Blaze arrives and you take on two of the grunts in a double battle.

-After winning, the entrance to the Safari Zone is wrecked, so theycare trmporarily closed. Hurley thanks you for your help, and gives you the field move Poketch app for Headbutt. He tells you some of the apps need gym badges, but not this one, before announcing that he is the new Cianwood gym leader now that his dad has retired.

-You return to Cianwood City, which is now accessible, along with its gym. Hurley has a Lv18 Tyrogue and a Lv20 Heracross. Upon winning, he grants you the Storm Badge, which allows you to use the Fly app (which you will need to acquire later). The ferry is now ready to depart for Olivine City.

-At Olivine, when you pass in front of the Olivine Gym, Maya is there. They tell you they came to fight Jasmine, but she's gone travelling to Sinnoh and the gym is closed. Maya challenges you to a battle. She has a Lv18 Snubbull, a Lv19 Shellder/Bellsprout/Growlithe (whichever is weak to your starter), and a Lv22 Bayleef/Quilava/Croconaw.

-At Ecruteak City, the Gym is locked, and Morty is in the Burnt Tower. When you enter it, you run into Colress as he is leaving the building. He talks about the Legendary Beasts that were believed to have existed in this building. When you go up and speak to Morty, he says he had been having a conversation with Colress about the legends surrounding the towers. He then heads back to his Gym. Houndour is now catchable in Burnt Tower.

-The Kimono Girls can be battled as before for the Surf app, however there are now 7 of them, with the addition of Leafeon and Glaceon.

-Morty has a Lv24 Gastly, a Lv25 Misdreavus, and a Lv27 Gengar. Upon defeating him, he grants you the Fog Badge, allowing you to use the Surf app.

-The path south of Ecrutreak is blocked by a Sudowoodo, forcing you east. As you enter Route 42, Blaze appears. He says he thinks he's gotten stronger and wants to test himself against you. His team is a Lv25 Pikachu, a Lv20 Happiny, a Lv24 Oddish/Vulpix/Staryu (whichever is super effective against your starter), and a Lv27 Bayleef/Quilava/Croconaw. After you win, he says Professor Elm said to give you this, and installs the Rock Smash app on your phone.

-Upon arriving to Mahogany Town, you see that it has been levelled by the rising caves. The Gym and Pokemon Center are in disrepair, and the path to Route 44 is obstructed by a new cliff face. If you enter the one accessible house, the hermit inside will tell you everyone left when the disaster happened, and they moved to Lycoris or Ecruteak cities, and that the Gym Leader Pryce disappeared when the cave formed and hasn't been since since.

-At the Lake of Rage, two Team Rocket grunts are standing by the water. When they see you, they challenge you to a battle. After defeating them, more arrive, but they are scared off by the arrival of Silver. Silver thanks you for defeating the grunts, and introduces himself. He says he's had some experiences with Team Rocket before, and that it's troubling to see them around here. He then gives you a Squirtbottle to get past the Sudowoodo.

At this point, you can take on the next three Gym Leaders in any order you want. However, there is a firm level curve, and if you challenge the 6th one next you're likely to get your ass kicked - you are, however, free to do so. This will be following the recommended order.

-After removing the Sudowoodo, the path to Violet City and the Ruins of Alph is blocked by a risen cave, forcing you towards Goldenrod City. This area is mostly unchanged, but more houses have been made accessible, including one with a conspicuously blocked off basement. Additionally, if you enter the basement of the Pokemart, they tell you you're not allowed down there and send you back into the elevator. The radio tower has modernized, and now runs streaming content and podcasts. You can also still obtain an Eevee from Bill at his home.

-At Goldenrod Gym, Whitney has a Lv29 Clefairy, a Lv31 Furret, and a Lv33 Miltank. Upon defeating her, she grants you the Plain Badge, allowing you to use the Strength app. She has a line about how she's not gonna cry over losing any more, and tells you there's a reward at National Park for the Strength app if you win the Bug-Catching Contest (if you haven't already won it).

-The Bug Catching contest can now be played at any time, and allows you to catch as many as you like, with your final score being a point total so as to make it way easier to win. You also get to choose which Pokemon you keep at the end so you don't have to keep a bunch of fodder mons.

-When passing the Daycare, you see Maya outside. She brags about having 5 gym badges and challenges you again. She has a Lv27 Snubbull, two of Lv28 Weepinbell/Shellder/Growlithe (excluding whichever matches their starter's type), and a Lv32 Bayleef/Quilava/Croconaw. When defeated, she throws a mild tantrum about how she has more gym badges and should be stronger than you, but then corrects herself and offers you one of two eggs she was given by the daycare. Yours contains a Togepi.

-In Ilex Forest, at the Celebi shrine, you encounter a strange man with a tattered black cloak shrouding their body, extremely long white hair, and a white mask covering their entire face, although you cannot see the front of it from your position. He is talking to the shrine. "Celebi... how long has it been? To this day, I still don't understand why...". He sees you, at which point he excuses himself and leaves.

-At Azalea Gym, Bugsy, now an adult, has a Lv35 Ledian, Lv35 Ariados, and a Lv36 Scizor. Upon winning, he grants you the Hive Badge, allowing you to use the Cut app.

-As soon as you leave the gym, you hear a commotion coming from nearby. Bugsy comes out of the gym, and says that sounded like the Cut master, and that it was coming from Slowpoke Well. He heads over to see what's going on. In the Well, you see the Cut master trying to corner a Team Rocket grunt, but the grunt defeats him. You step up and battle the grunt, who then tries to escape.

-When you leave the well, the grunt is being cornered by Kurt, who says he'll never let Team Rocket mess with this well again. The grunt runs away towards Union Cave. When you get to the cave's entrance, he is nowhere to be seen, and the cave's entrance is boarded up. Kurt, Bugsy, and the Cut master all arrive and tell you he must have gone into the cave, but that we shouldn't follow him - the cave was unstable after the rest of the cave system rose from the ground, and it may still be dangerous. Kurt introduces himself and tells you about Azalea Town's history with Team Rocket, and tells you about his apricorn ball service. The Cut master thanks you by giving you the Cut app.

-Returning to the Lake of Rage, the northeast has a new path, but it's obstructed by two rocket grunts. Travelling west, though, through the maze of trees, there is now a new route, Route 49. It is a winding route, covered in trees and snow. Here, you can catch Fearow, Furret, Noctowl, Murkrow, Misdreavus, Smeargle, Sneasel, Houndour, and Delibird.

-To the west of Route 49, and north of Mt. Mortar, is Lycoris City (loosely based on Fukui). It is a snow-covered city with architecture similar to Ecruteak, with numerous beds of Spider Lillies. It is divided into two halves, with the top half being on a high raised wooden platform.

-In the north is Lycoris Shrine. It is a two-storey building in the center of the raised platform, filled with trainers and wild pokemon. Here, you can find Growlithe/Vulpix, Golbat, Gastly, Haunter, Bellsprout, Weepinbell, Natu, Murkrow, Sneasel, and Houndour.

-When you get to the far end of the top floor, you encounter Blaze. He tells you he came all this way looking for as many Pokemon as possible, and wants to show you. His team is a Lv37 Pikachu, Lv36 Chansey, two of Lv37 Gloom/Ninetales/Starmie (minus whichever is the same type as their starter), and Lv38 Meganium/Typhlosion/Feraligatr.

-Karen comes over, who tells you she used to be the gym leader here a long time ago. She says she was impressed by your battle and likes the look in your eye and expects she'll be seeing you again soon, before giving you the Fly app.

-At Lycoris Gym, the Leader is Shin, a tall person with spiky white hair, a sleeveless black turtleneck, mesh sleeves, long and sharp black nails, and baggy black jeans. Their team is a Lv37 Sneasel, Lv38 Umbreon, Lv37 Murkrow, and Lv40 Weavile. Upon winning, they grant you the Umbral Badge, which allows you to use the Whirlpool app.

-Once you have 6 badges (and have handled the Slowpoke Well incident), Silver will call you asking you if you can come to Mahogany Town. When you arrive, he is in front of the old Rocket hideout. He thanks you for coming, when suddenly Maya arrives, bragging about having 6 badges, before being shocked that you've caught up to them. They proclaim that they will be the strongest, and need to battle you to prove it. Silver interrupts saying we have more important things to worry about, and telling Maya that it's a mistake to view everything in terms of Weak and Strong.

-Silver then breaks down the door to the hideout with his Crobat, and inside we see the place full of Team Rocket members, who run down into the base. Silver comments that he thought they'd be smarter than hiding here again, and tells the two of you to follow him into the base.

-In the boss's office of the base, you encounter Proton, Petrel, Ariana, and Colress. Silver says he's shocked to see the three of them back at it, but asks who the new guy is. Colress introduces himself and says Team Rocket are his new benefactors. Petrel tells Silver that Colress is the brains behind their big new scheme, before Ariana tells him to be quiet. You battle Proton, while Maya battles Petrel and Silver battles Ariana. Proton has a Lv38 Golbat and a Lv39 Weezing.

-Upon winning, Proton says it doesn't matter, and they already got everything ready here. Petrel says they learned one thing from last time, and Colress flips a switch turning off all the lights. When they come back on, they have all vanished. Silver expresses disappointment that they couldn't catch them, and tells the two of you that he once battled Team Rocket here with two of his good friends. He then wonders what they're planning next before he takes his leave.

-Maya says it was always her dream to become the strongest, but that seeing the way Silver battled was something she never imagined. She trails off before leaving.

-The rocket grunts at the lake have now left, allowing you to take a new path heading down into Route 44, which is much the same as it always was besides the entrance to Mahogany Town being obscured.

-You travel through Ice Path into Blackthorn City, and on arriving at the front of the Blackthorn Gym, Maya shows up. She tells you that she's not sure if she really is the strongest, and that since you two are even she wants to battle you before either of you face the gym. She says to meet her in the Dragon's Den behind the gym, and she'll be waiting.

-In the shrine in Dragon's Den, you face off against Maya. She has a Lv42 Granbull, a Lv40 Rhydon, two of Lv42 Victreebel/Arcanine/Cloyster, and a Lv44 Meganium/Typhlosion/Feraligatr.

-Upon defeating her, she wonders if maybe she isn't the strongest after all. Before she can go on, Lance appears, and tells her that she's plenty strong, but strong isn't enough. Clair also arrives, and says they heard us talking outside their gym and watched our battle. Clair announces that she is the leader of Blackthorn gym, before Lance corrects her and says that they are the leaders of Blackthorn gym, and that they now battle side by side, and that they're excited to face us.

-In Blackthorn gym, you face off against Lance and Clair in a double battle. Lance has a Lv43 Gyarados and a Lv45 Dragonite, and Clair has a Lv42 Dragonair and a Lv44 Kingdra. Upon winning, the two of them bicker a bit, before giving you the Rising Badge, allowing use of the Waterfall app.

-When you exit the gym, you get a call from Professor Oak telling you there's an emergency at the radio tower and he needs our help. Immediately afterwards, Silver calls, and tells you Team Rocket are attacking Goldenrod City, and wonders to himself if they're really just trying to same plan all over again.

-When arriving to Goldenrod, the city is swarming with Rocket Grunts. The radio towers has waves of them in front of it, blocking the entrance. Silver is fighting them all off. Silver tells you he'll take care of this, and to go look for a cardkey in the underground - he know show they operate, and that we'll need it to get to the top of the tower. We go to look for it, however the Pokemart and the Underground are both blocked by Rocket grunts. Blaze and Maya are both here, battling rocket grunts at each of the entrances.

-Heading into the house that had the suspicious basement passage from earlier, you are immediately confronted with a rocket grunt, who accidentally gives away that this is the new secret entrance to the underground system. You then battle your way through the underground, where you eventually encounter Petrel, who has the keycard. He has two Lv40 Koffings and a Lv42 Weezing. Upon defeat, he runs away, dropping the keycard.

-You can then leave via any of the three exits, where you can see Blaze and Maya have defeated their respective batches of grunts. You head into the radio tower, now accessible, and give Silver the keycard. He heads upstairs. You encounter Proton and Ariana, but before they can stop you, Maya arrives. Silver says to fight them while he heads upstairs and deals with their leader. You and Maya enter a double battle. Proton has a Lv40 Golbat, a Lv39 Qwilfish, and a Lv42 Weezing. Ariana has a Lv40 Arbok, a Lv41 Vileplume, and a Lv42 Honchkrow.

-Upon defeating them and heading upstairs, you see that Silver has firmly defeated Archer. However, Archer makes a break for it, running outside of the building. Outside, you see Blaze, who tells you they saw Archer run towards Ilex Forest.

-In Ilex Forest, you encounter Archer at the shrine, where you challenge him. He has a Lv40 Houndour, a Lv43 Weezing, a Lv42 Ariados, and a Lv45 Houndoom.

-Upon defeating him, Silver, Maya, and Blaze arrive. Silver tells him to give up, but Archer tells him that this was a trick to buy time while the broadcast was uploading. You then get an alert on your Poketch showing you the radio tower has a live stream - you cut to the video, and you see a man shrouded in a tattered black cloak, with long white hair, and a white mask covering his face... with the Team Rocket emblem over the mask. It's the man you saw here, in Ilex Forest. He begins a speech, telling everyone that he believed that Team Rocket was done when Giovanni left - however, the broadcast 10 years ago inspired them to take up his mantle. He calls himself Rocket Mask, and declares that he is the new boss of Team Rocket. He informs them that they have plans in motion that will enable them to achieve total domination, and invites anyone who abandoned their cause to return to them to fulfil their destiny. He tells them that the Mahogany Town base is compromised, but that they should know where to go. The stream ends.

-Archer says he's completed his work, and it doesn't matter if you take him in. He tries to eacape anyway, but suddenly... Looker turns up. He apologizes to Silver for taking so long to arrive, and captures Archer. They all briefly talk about who the strange man in the mask could be. Archer refuses to tell them anything, and is hauled away by Looker. Silver thanks you for your help, and gives you the Flash app for your help. He tells you to head to Violet City through the Dark Cave.

-As everyone leaves, you begin to walk away, but suddenly hear something. Celebi floats down in front of you, before hovering over their shrine. The space in front of you begind to warp, and you are shown a vision of Rocket Mask at the shrine, with the four Rocket Execs beside him. He tells them that this shrine belongs to Celebi, and that it is thanks to them that they can begin their glorious return. Celebi then disappears, returning everything to normal.

-You fly back to Blackthorn City, and travel through the Dark Cave to Violet City. Falkner is currently out, at the Sprout Tower. You battle your way through Sprout Tower, and once you meet Falkner at the top, he returns to his gym.

-At Violet City Gym, you face Falkner, who has a Lv45 Noctowl, a Lv44 Fearow, a Lv46 Dodrio, a Lv47 Togetic, and a Lv48 Pigeot. Upon defeating him, you are granted the Zephyr Badge, allowing use of the Rock Climb app.

-Upon leaving, Professor Elm calls you and asks if you can come back to his lab. When you get there, he gives you the Waterfall app, and upon finding out you have all 8 badges, suggests you go to the Pokemon League. Before you leave, Blaze arrives, and says they've been watching us, watching Maya, and that they think they've learned from us and our bond with our Pokemon what a good trainer is. They challenge us to one last battle. Their team is a Lv48 Raichu, a Lv48 Blissey, a Lv47 Espeon, two of Lv48 Bellossom/Ninetales/Starmie, and a Lv50 Meganium/Typhlosion/Feraligatr. When you win, he thanks you, and declares that they're going to take on the gym challenge as well.

-You travel through the way to the Elite Four the same as in the original games. Just before entering to face the Elite Four, Maya stops you. She says she's been thinking about what Silver told her, and that maybe she had been wrong to focus on being the strongest. She asks you to battle her again to help her figure it out. Her team is a Lv50 Granbull, a Lv50 Rhyperior, a Lv49 Umbreon, two of Lv51 Victreebel/Arcanine/Cloyster, and a Lv52 Meganium/Typhlosion/Feraligatr. After you beat her, she thanks you, and says that she realizes that instead of trying to be the strongest, she should just try and be the best that she can be... which meand THEN she'll be the strongest! (never change, Maya).

-As you enter the Elite Four, the first member you face is Brock. He has a Lv50 Golem, a Lv51 Kabutops, a Lv51 Omastar, a Lv51 Onix, and a Lv52 Aerodactyl.

-The second member is Will. He has a Lv51 Hypno, a Lv52 Girafarig, a Lv52 Slowking, a Lv53 Exeggutor, and a Lv54 Xatu.

-The third member is Misty. She has a Lv53 Politoed, a Lv54 Cloyster, a Lv53 Azumarill, a Lv53 Vaporeon, and a Lv55 Starmie.

-The fourth member is Karen. She has a Lv54 Umbreon, a Lv55 Honchkrow, a Lv56 Weavile, a Lv56 Gengar, and a Lv58 Houndoom.

-As you head up the long staircase to face the champion, the ground suddenly begins to shake, and the lights momentarily go out. You continue to climb the stairs, but when you reach the door at the top, it won't open. As you head back down, a gang of Team Rocket grunts swarm in. They tell you that the building is surrounded, and they're going to keep the Elite Four incapacitated while they carry out their plan. They begin to back you into a corner, but suddenly, Celebi appears. The world around you begins to warp. Suddenly, the Team Rocket grunts have disappeared, and everything seems to be normal.

-You head into the Champion's room and see... Lance? But wasn't he a gym leader now? He seems just as confused as you are, since there wasn't anyone challenging the league. After you explain about Celebi, he tells you that he has heard the myth of a time travelling Pokemon, and that maybe you've been sent back in time. You leave the building with Lance.

-As he begins to wonder how to return you to your own time, he gets a call from Silver. Silver tells him that the Pokemon are going crazy near the Ruins of Alph, and that there are some strange signals being picked up on the Poketch. Lance takes you to Violet City, however as you head to the Ruins of Alph, a great quake begins. The ground begins rising in front of you. You hear a great cry, and you are seperated from Lance as the ground beneath your feet lifts, turning into a new cave. It's six years ago, and the disaster is occuring before your eyes.

-From the Ruins of Alph, you see something fly away. As the sunlight clears, you see Entei/Raikou (the opposite of the boxart legendary) soaring into the sky on wings, surrounded by Unown. Its emits a great glow, and its wings seem to burst into flames/lightning. It falls onto the new cliff face in front of you, now in its original form. As it stares us down, Celebi returns, warping us back to our own time, in Ilex Forest, before disappearing.

-We immediately get a call from Blaze, who is asking if we're okay and is confused that we're in Ilex Forest. They heard that Team Rocket is staging an assault on Indigo Plateau. Suddenly, the same signal starts coming through the Poketch that did six years ago. A broadcast comes on, and you can see Rocket Mask once again making an announcement. He states that six years ago, he failed. But this time, he will succeed. Celebi has shown him the way, and soon, Team Rocket will have the key to world domination.

-You head to the entrance to Union Cave, now unblocked. As soon as you enter, you see Suicune. It roars at you, before running into the cave. You travel through its underground passages, and make your way into the Ruins of Alph.

-The ruins now have a large pillar in the centre, which you seemingly have no way to access. As you head into the ruins, you see Suicune again, at a wall. Suddenly, Unown surround them, and a portion of the wall disappears, revealing a hidden passageway.

-As you get to the end of the passageway, and enter the pillar in the center of the ruins, and see Colress and Rocket Mask. Colress seems alarmed to see you. Rocket Mask asks how you got here, but remarks that it doesn't matter. The screen pans, and you can see Entei/Raikou (your box legendary), surrounded by two chains of Unown, spinning around them like a gyroscope.

-He explains that ever since a fateful encounter with Suicune, he had sought the power of the legendary beasts. 10 years ago, when Team Rocket made their broadcast, he was ashamed to have left them when Giovanni first disbanded the team. To find out that they had even been operating in his old secret hideout brought him great shame. After the news of their defeat broke, he went on a journey. In Ilex Forest, he was suddenly approached by Suicune, and feared Suicune was going to attack him. Suddenly, Celebi arrived, and teleported him back through time, showing him his glory days in Team Rocket as Giovanni's right-hand man. He decided then that this was a sign - that he needed to bring back Team Rocket, and that the Legendary Beasts were how he would do it.

Six years ago, he was approached by Colress, who had experimented with Pokemon before, and had heard of his interest in the beasts. He knew that they had a master who had created them, a legendary Pokemon named Ho-Oh. If they were created by Ho-Oh, they could use its power. By utilizing the power of the Unown, he believed he could combine their power - with a Rainbow Wing/Silver Wing. However, they only used one chain of Unown - they needed two. The beast they captured six years ago broke free, and unleashing their full power caused them to send that energy through the land, reshaping it. While they lost both the beast and the wing, they discovered that there was a second wing - that the Silver Wing was not actually from Ho-Oh, but from Lugia, a Pokemon whose power mirrored Lugia, and that they could use the Silver Wing instead/that they had the wrong wing, and that the Rainbow Wing was needed. Now they have obtained the second wing, and captured another beast.

After their failure six years ago, they felt tremendous shame. Not just for their failure, but for the damage they did. They even destroyed their own town. After that, they could never go back. They had to see this through to the end. They took up the mantle of Rocket Mask, and decided nothing would stop them from taming the beast - least of all, you.

-Rocket Mask removes their mask, revealing themselves to be none other than Pryce, the former leader of the Mahogany Town gym. While Colress finishes combining the beast's power with the wing, Pryce challenges you. He has a Lv55 Weavile, a Lv57 Dewgong, a Lv56 Piloswine, a Lv57 Cloyster, and a Lv59 Mamoswine.

-Upon defeating him, he says it no longer matters - the beast is complete. The Unown chains spin faster, and emit a great glow. The ground begins to shake, and then... suddenly, it ends. The Unown are floating freely, and Entei/Raikou is before you, in the air, flapping its wings. Pryce is amazed, and orders Entei/Raikou to come to him. It roars, and ignores his order. Pryce is shocked and indignant, and demands an explanation from Colress, who doesn't understand why the Unown chains broke apart - they were key to controlling it. Entei/Raikou attacks them, sending them both reeling. It floats before you, waiting.

-You challenge Entei/Raikou, Lv60. Capture or defeat it.

-Once captured/defeated, Pryce demands an explanation, and says he couldn't have been wrong. Suddenly, Celebi descends. It shows Pryce his past again - this time, the day he left Team Rocket. It shows him coming to terms with moving on, and looking forward to the future. Pryce then begins to wonder if he had made a mistake this whole time.

-Suddenly, Looker flies in! He challenges Pryce, before realizing that he has already been defeated. Pryce agrees to come quietly. Colress slips away unnoticed.

-Suddenly, Maya, Blaze, and Professor Elm all fly in seperately. They congratulate you on taking them down, and you all head home together. Roll credits.

-Upon resuming, Maya comes to your house, informing you that the league is shut down at the moment to repair the damage Team Rocket did, and that in the meantime we should go and challenge the Kanto gym leaders!

-You head to Cherrygrove City and take the ferry to Vermillion. When you arrive, Looker is there, and thanks you again for your help taking down Team Rocket. However, the three remaining admins are at large, and they believe they are somewhere in Kanto.

-With one exception, the gyms can now be faced in any order. However, two of them require specific events first. The rest, in no particular order:

-Lt. Surge has a Lv56 Raichu, a Lv57 Electrode, a Lv57 Magneton, and a Lv58 Electivire

-Sabrina has a Lv58 Mr. Mime, a Lv58 Slowbro, a Lv59 Espeon, and a Lv62 Alakazam

-Janine has a Lv55 Ariados, a Lv57 Venomoth, a Lv56 Weezing, and a Lv58 Crobat

-Cinnabar Island has a new artificial extension to keep the town proper out of volcano range, and have fully revuilt the town over the water. Blaine has a Lv58 Rapidash, a Lv58 Arcanine, a Lv57 Magcargo, and a Lv60 Magmortar

-Flint, Brock's father (yes, like in the anime) has taken over Pewter Gym. He has a Lv57 Forretress, a Lv57 Magneton, a Lv58 Skarmory, and a Lv60 Steelix.

-Erika is not at her Gym in Celadon - she can instead be found in front of the disused casino. She is speaking to Looker about Team Rocket sightings in the area. She will not battle you until after all of Team Rocket are fought. If you go inside the Casino, you can find Rocket's original base is in use again, and the rest of the rockets are hiding there. You and Looker go through and find Proton and Ariana there. You battle them. Proton has a Lv55 Golbat, a Lv57 Qwilfish, and a Lv57 Weezing. Ariana has a Lv60 Arbok, a Lv59 Vileplume, and a Lv61 Honchkrow. Looker captures them and takes them away. On their desk, you can see a plan to take over the Power Plant. If you head there, you find Petrel, the last Rocket, skulking around in front. He has three Weezings, Lv60, Lv61, and Lv62. Once defeated, he agrees to come quietly, and Looker thanks you for your assistance. You can now fight Erika.

-Erika has a Lv60 Jumpluff, a Lv61 Victreebel, a Lv61 Vileplume, a Lv60 Bellossom, and a Lv64 Tangrowth.

-In Mt. Moon, you encounter a young girl digging for fossils. She has beige overalls, a braided black ponytail, a hard hat, thick gardening gloves, a white dirt-stained tank top, thick round glasses, and freckles. She tells you her name is Bonnie, and says you're welcome to one of the fossils she's just dug up. At that moment, Maya arrives and tells you she already has 6 of the Kanto badges, but can't find the other two gym leaders. She then challenges you to a battle. She has a Lv64 Granbull, a Lv65 Espeon, a Lv64 Rhyperior, two of Lv65 Victreebel/Arcanine/Cloyster, and a Lv66 Meganium/Typhlosion/Feraligatr. After you beat her, Bonnie offers you both a fossil (you pick between Dome and Helix) and she awkwardly says that she's acfually the new Viridian City Gym Leader, and heads back to her gym. You can now challenge her.

-Bonnie has a Lv63 Quagsire, a Lv64 Pupitar, a Lv64 Donphan, a Lv65 Gliscor, and a Lv67 Nidoqueen.

-Upon passing the front of Cerulean Gym, Lorelei will appear. She informs you that this gym is closed now that Misty is in the E4. She retired from the Elite Four years ago to look after her home in the Sevii Islands, but got offered the Gym Leader position here. She arranged for a new gym to be made in the Sevii Islands instead, and to come visit her once you have the other 7 badges. You can travel there from Vermillion.

-At Lorelei's gym on Four Island, you can battle her once you have the other 7 Kanto badges. She has a Lv65 Delibird, a Lv66 Dewgong, a Lv67 Jynx, a Lv67 Glaceon, and a Lv68 Lapras. Once defeated, she grants you the Snow Badge.

-With 16 Badges, you are ready to take on the league again.

-As before, the first member you face is Brock. He has a Lv67 Golem, a Lv68 Kabutops, a Lv68 Omastar, a Lv69 Steelix, a Lv69 Rhyperior, and a Lv70 Aerodactyl.

-The second member is Will. He has a Lv69 Hypno, a Lv70 Wobbuffet, a Lv70 Girafarig, a Lv70 Slowking, a Lv70 Exeggutor, and a Lv71 Xatu.

-The third member is Misty. She has a Lv70 Politoed, a Lv69 Cloyster, a Lv70 Azumarill, a Lv71 Vaporeon, a Lv71 Golduck, and a Lv73 Starmie.

-The fourth member is Karen. She has a Lv71 Umbreon, a Lv72 Honchkrow, a Lv71 Weavile, a Lv72 Gengar, a Lv73 Muk, and a Lv74 Houndoom.

-Finally, you climb the stairs up to the champion, once again. No interruptions from Team Rocket this time. You open the door.

-Silver greets you. He thanks you for yoir work in defeating Team Rocket, and says he doesn't know what would have happened if you hadn't been there. He apologizes for not being able to fight last time, but as the Pokemon League Champion, he will hold nothing back. Silver has a Lv74 Crobat, a Lv73 Weavile, a Lv74 Magnezone, a Lv76 Gengar, a Lv75 Alakazam, and a Lv78 Tyranitar.

-As you defeat him, he congratulates you, and says he knew you had it in you. That he hadn't faced a trainer like you in a decade. He takes you to the hall of fame, and swears you in as the new Pokemon League Champion.

Roll credits, again.

-Finally, as champion, you now have access to Mt. Silver. And who is on top the mountain... but Ethan/Lyra, standing in the spot where they once defeated Red. They say nothing. The battle begins. They have a Lv82 Red Gyarados, a Lv81 Ampharos, a Lv83 Meganium, a Lv83 Typhlosion, a Lv83 Feraligatr, and a Lv85 Togekiss.

[maddymoreau]

@bunny-kisser In my Pokemon Mystery Dungeon AU Grant is a Shiny Fearow and my Self Insert is a Shiny Wurmple.

Rambling:

For context Grant's backstory is that he used to be in the Army until his Lieutenant made a bad call, resulting in all of Grant's Squad/Friends getting killed. The only survivors were Grant and his Lieutenant who he drifted apart from after the Army. When Grant left he moved into his parent's old log cabin. Later he sees the player in town, starts stalking them and eventually kidnaps them.

Instead of being in the military in the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon AU Grant would've been part of a Rescue Team. Specifically a Hyper Rank on the cusp of becoming a Master Rank.

Things play out the same, Grant's Leader makes a bad call and all their Team/Friends getting killed in a dungeon. Grant stops being an Explorer, returns to where he grew up and notices a weak Shiny Wurmple in town.

The storyline plays out basically identical to my regular self ship lore. Except in the game Grant calls the player on the phone under the guise that he received a fake number. When in reality he's outside their window and gauging their reactions.

In the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon AU at night Grant would approach my Self Insert outside her home. His body would be completely hidden in tall grass, but he'd use his long neck to make his head hang low to appear smaller/at her eye level. She can't see what he looks like, but knows someone is there. Grant would talk to her and lie saying he was supposed to meet someone here.

The dialogue would be almost identical to what happens in the game. Except it says address instead of fake number:

Grant: “I just had to ask. Why would someone who was hitting it off with someone else turn around and give them a fake address afterwards?”

Player: “Lots of reasons. Maybe they didn’t know how to let you down? Didn’t want to hurt your feelings. Maybe they were afraid.”

Grant: “Are you afraid?”

During the kidnapping one of Fearow's Pokedex Entries would come into play: "It cleverly uses its thin, long beak to pluck and eat small insects that hide under the ground."

Funny enough a lot of Wurmple's Pokedex entries mention being preyed upon by bird Pokemon: "Often targeted by bird Pokémon, it desperately resists by releasing poison from its tail spikes."

My Self Insert would try to fight, fail and get kidnapped. Not long after being taken to Grant's home she'd evolve into a Silcoon. Her body reacts to this stressful situation by evolving as way to defend/protect herself. Since it gives her this silk barrier and increases her defense while still allowing her to move.

Off topic but I LOVE how the anime shows Cascoon move. I imagine Silcoon moves the same way:

Grant's motivation in the AU is the same, to have complete control over her to do whatever he wants.

To live the domestic fantasy he's imagined with her.

After almost a year has passed since being kidnapped my Self Insert stops trying to escape and evolves into a Beautifly. Even though she now has wings that would help her, she doesn’t try escaping. Also a fun little detail is that she goes from being just a Bug type Pokemon to a Bug/Flying type once she accepts her fate. She gains the Flying type that Grant has.

Visual Details:

Why I picked Fearow and Beautifly:

I wanted my Self Insert to be a Bug type. Very weak, with her main focus on surviving, never imagining herself being capable of becoming an Explorer. Behind on evolution compared to where she'd like to be, in this very awkward stage figuring out what she wants to do and how to connect with other Pokemon.

Compared to Grant who is at his final stage of evolution. Grant has lived a life with past relationships, friends, a successful career and knows exactly what he wants.

I really liked the contrast between the two, especially Grant being stronger. Along with the dynamic between a Bird and Bug type Pokemon since Grant enjoys having power over her.

I actually decided Grant as a Fearow first. From similarities in vibe/appearance and after reading Fearow's Pokedex entries.

Once I decided on Grant as a Fearow and thought of the Bird Bug type dynamic. I searched for a Bug type Pokemon I thought would suit my Self Insert.

Which Beautifly does especially this entry that make me laugh: "A colorful and incredibly beautiful but also greedy Pokémon. In an effort to keep its favorite food all to itself, it will chase away Combee as they try to gather nectar."

The tall grass idea came from Wurmple’s Pokedex: "It lives amidst tall grass and in forests. When attacked, it resists by pointing its venomous spikes at the foe."

Also they were slightly inspired by Team Tasty:

[pokemon-ash-aus]

Cuteness!

Cuteness

Timeline: Present

Alternative Universe: Swap Maturity AU

May grinned, chuckling as her new friends gathered closer and closer, tied into it by a certain missing ebony.

The awkward atmosphere was still plenty palpable, but the more they talked and mingled, the more many of them had realized they all had quiet a bit in common.

And yes, May was going to get at Ash for forgetting to mention how many cool people he knew. The dude had the memory of swiss cheese at times, which still baffled all of them on plenty of occassion.

"Anyone got any insight in Ash." Brock tilted his head, the ten year old mullishly picking at his pokedex. "I thought, he was gonna be here sooner."

"Either Indigo held him up, or he got lost." Max grinned, taking the plate offered to him by Bonnie. "You know how they are."

"Just cause we know it, doesnt mean we get it." Came the grumble, Brock glaring at the plate of chicken offered to him.

"Worse comes to worse, we get a Jenny and preform a search party." May waved a hand, feeling her phone vibrate for the briefest of seconds before she flipped it open. "Man- they choose the worse timing, it would have been a great search party too."

"They're here?" Dawn prodded, leaning to look over her shoulder.

It didn't really matter much, as they all felt the smallest tug of a teleportation, ears popping at the subtle change of atmosphere.

Suddenly, they heard the thundering of footsteps, watching Peach burst in with the flamboyance only ten year olds seem to manage.

"HELLO!" She threw her arms up and threw her head back, like a tiny little rockstar in the making. "WE ARE LATE CAUSE OF THE TERRORS!"

May snickered, rolling her eyes as Indigo came running in shortly after, hair askewed and desperately trying to fix it. His face was tickled pink, burning brighter as he glanced at everyone.

"Oh fuck." Indigo breathed out, wincing slightly when Misty shot him a glare. "For the record, here and now, I wanna say we've had a hellish few months, we didn't actively choose to not tell you."

"Gogo, what are you even talking-," And Bonnie's sentence trailed off, the older teen sitting up straight as her mouth dropped open.

And May followed her line of sight, taking in Ash as he sluggishly walked in, eye bags bruised and hair frazzled.

Still, when he caught their eyes, he grinned, face considerably brightening.

"Come on now." He drawled sarcastically, shifting his shoulder slightly. "This isnt the weirdest thing you caught me doing."

And May's eyes traveled down, right into the two kids settled neatly into Ash's arms.

One child, couldn't have been older than two, peered over the swaddled blanket he was in. Big red-brown eyes stared right back at her, a pout settled on his lips. The kid has black hair from what she could tell, contrasting against paler skin.

The other child must have been only a year older. Maybe three? Maybe not. But he was a small bit bigger. Black hair toussled with streaks of pink, big blue eyes glancing at everyone nervously as he tried his hardest to sink into Ash's shirt. Unlike the other one, he had a tanner skin, nearly the same tone as Ash's.

May completely froze, barely registering any sound as her eyes darted from Ash, to the two children in his arms.

"What the fuck," Iris dropped her plate onto the table, blinking slowly as she stepped forward, then back, then forward again.

"Oh yeah-" Ash lifted up baby number 1, the two year old scrunching his face and making an odd movement with his hand. "This is Red, Red Ketchum. He's 2 years old and he can't speak very well, so we've been teaching him sign."

The baby made another movement with his hands, coordinated in a way that May had an inkling she knew less and more than she was supposed to.

"And this-" Ash lifted up baby number 2, the Toddler having a vice grip on ash's shirt, uncaring of the way he dragged Ash's shirt and jacket up. "Is King, King Ketchum. He's 3 years old, but he doesnt like people very much. Just give him a bit of time to get used to everyone."

The silence might have been much more all consuming, if it wasnt for the way that Indigo and Peach both walked to the center table to start serving themselves food, one looking exhausted and the other gleeful.

"Cute kids." Serena mumured out, her eyes still wide as she turned to look at everyone else. "So, where did you even... Did you- did you make them?"

And Ash's demeanor fell, an annoyed look to his face that would have made her flinch is May hadn't known her friend.

"Oh, let me tell you all what happened." He sighed, striding forward with a story on his shoulders and 2 toddlers in his arms.

Oh, May was gonna remember this day forever.

[somethingwittyandweird]

It's that time again! What's your favorite game you played this year?

Hope you're ready for a response to rival last year's post. There are so many good games that I have so much yapping to do about. And, if I may say so, this year was an accomplished one: I made some notable progress putting long-standing backlog titles to rest, as well as some new games that won me instantly. So, let's dive in...

We started off VERY strong with converting one of last year's “I watched this game and it was cool” to “I played this game and it was cool”: Hi-Fi Rush. It absolutely captivated me throughout. It has everything- charm, style, writing and characters that are heartfelt, hilarious, and over the top all at once- and most of all it has an incredibly natural evolution of the high-style high-precision action genre into a rhythm-based brawler where the world moves to the beat. Do I even need to mention it has, not one, but two banger soundtracks? It's a game I look forward to replaying (a rare praise from me), and one I know I'll be in love with for a long time.

Around the same time I was working my way through Sea of Stars- I've talked more about that here but it also really had me engaged as a modern love letter back to the SNES JRPG era. Visually stunning, musically lovely, satisfying gameplay, and a story that I felt gave its well written characters the space they deserved.

Once those were out of the way, I had my mission for the rest of the year: get this backlog CLEARED. Throughout the year, I knocked out:

Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia: a game beloved by many growing up that had passed me by. Experiencing it for myself years later, I could tell that I would have poured endless hours into this DS title as a kid, and even today I loved it enough to 100% its quests and Pokedex. Absolutely killer writing and fun gameplay that still holds up today. I am glad I played it as an older adult though for one reason: at this age I know how not to harm my DS’ screen when drawing endless loops.

NEO TWEWY: A sequel to a cult classic I never thought I'd see but I was so, so happy to see it come back. The new game massively shook up the gameplay (it had to, TWEWY for DS is very literally inimitable) but fully kept the spirit and updated it. As the OG wore its 2000s teen culture loud, this game carried the torch forward and gave us the same charm with modern Internet culture. It brought back old characters in excellent ways, added great new ones, had some of my favorite kind of time travel writing moments, and did it all with style, flair, and a rocking OST. In every way a worthy successor to the OG.

Indivisible: Another game I wrote about elsewhere, Lab Zero's sadly ill-fated entry into action platforming. As I said there, I'm glad I could give myself closure on it and I was glad to appreciate the parts of it that did clearly shine- the delicious visuals and combat gameplay. Hopeful to see where those devs end up and what they'll contribute their talent to now.

Triangle Strategy: In terms of strategy games this was a foray outside my usual Fire Emblem interest zone, but it is my friend’s favorite game of all time, so I had to give it a go. The differences took some adjusting, but I ended up enjoying my time with the game. Combat was engaging, visuals had me oohing and ahhing in places, I liked the characters (Julio and Jens my MVPs). But the standout was the story- as deep and politically thrilling as I was promised it would be. The narrative voting/negotiation system offered me some cool moments of choosing my path (or one time having it chosen for me) which culminated in a really really well set up three-way ending split; it wasn't just choosing a side but choosing an ideology, and the characters who wouldn't abide that choice felt completely justified in their refusal to follow you. I didn't get the golden route, but I may go back someday. Without a doubt my best narrative game of the year. (Plus, the final boss of the route I chose was really really tactically engaging and I loved it as much as i feared it.)

Along the way, a few non-backlog titles did sneak their way onto the list…

Case of the Golden Idol: a visually quirky detective narrative puzzle game that scratched the same deductive itch as Obra Dinn, I had a lot of fun deciphering its ersatz mystery. Each chapter is a death tableau and you use clues and logic to piece together who is who, what is what, and what has happened, with each scene leading to a bizarre overarching narrative that makes you want to keep going just to see how wild it gets.

Death’s Door: A little soulslite adventure title about a reaper crow working for Death and trying to straighten up some loose ends. The environments are really well modeled (though a map wouldn't have gone amiss) and the combat system had a satisfying loop with some unique twists. Its final boss impressed me by being a spectacle fight through multiple zones that showed off the boss��� powers thematically, let you learn what the boss was doing in each phase, and wasn't a drag to retry (the usual danger with set piece fights that keep shifting areas). 

Blasphemous: One of those “classics” of the modern indie metroidvania space, and one of the first to get overtly Soulsy with it, I finally got the chance to try it and it showed me just why it deserves its "classic" status. The writing was very Souls and the platforming very vania, both excelling in their own way. I really loved the sheer variety of collectibles, that's a strong point in my heart for any metroidvania. I absolutely adored the music, a masterwork of Spanish guitar tracks I still listen to. And visually the game’s strong Spanish Roman Catholic aesthetic absolutely oozed artistic passion, and it was clear that so much work went into its visuals… including the surprising amount of (well-animated) gore. Which leads me to…

Nine Sols: if I had a nickel for every soulslike metroidvania I played this year that turned out to be quite unexpectedly graphic, these would be my two nickels. But content warning aside, I can't sing Nine Sols’ praise enough. Its gameplay was thoroughly polished and at every turn designed to help you feel like a kickbutt martial artist warrior, running up walls and surviving lethal enemies with perfect parrying and a unique attack to give that iconic ‘dash past enemy, beat, they explode’ rhythm to the fights. Then it sells that mastery by making enemies increasingly lethal, requiring more and more skill, but the floor never ramped hard enough that I was frustrated (though the last two bosses had me baffled for a while). Exploration felt rewarding with a lot of cool and useful items to find, and seeing this game’s beautiful blend of "Taopunk" futuristic + traditional Oriental environmental designs was a treat unto itself. And lastly, there's a gripping story that unfolds as you get to know its characters- Yi, your mysterious protagonist, the friends he makes, and the enemies he ruthlessly cuts down.

Are we done yet? Almost, I promise. 

As of writing I'm in the middle of Echoes of Wisdom and Ghost Trick, so those, while both great titles, will I think be their own posts. All that's left then is to acknowledge the games I played that I didn't, or couldn't, “beat:” the multiplayer ones.

I played a bunch of MtG with my friends, and I played a lot of Civilization VI with other friends, and those both took up many happy hours. If this wasn't too long already I'd tell you about unstoppable bunnies and definitely not werewolves, or my friends and I allying to conquer the world. But I knew when I got my switch recap today that there's a clear standout in hour count alone: It's not a surprise to you or to me, it's Splatoon freshwater-freaking 3. 

How could I not give it the most love for this year where I fell harder into it than ever before? Where my elite Salmon Runner friend helped me climb to dizzying new heights of EVP rank 999? Where I appeared on so many friend’s multiplayer streams for Splatfests and Big Runs? Where I took it upon myself to fill out my weapon collection 100%? Where I did Side Order runs until I knew every floor by name? Every one of those things has given me a cherished memory… but none more cherished than attending an honest-to-goodness music festival in this game, with my friends, reminiscing on past triumphs, on the importance of living in the present, and with the thrill of looking to the future. I loved Splatoon 3, and with the Grand Festival, it felt like the game, the devs, and the community gave me that love right back. 

That, among all of these games’ memories and experiences, is the one I think I'll treasure longest.

Video games are cool. I'm so, so glad they're real.

[kafus]

if you ever feel up to it, i'd love to hear how you got the mew. hearing stories about people and their pokemon is really fun.

SOMEONE TOOK THE BAIT LET'S GOOO i wanted to talk about thisSDFFDKS

anyway i got my hadou mew through basically a miracle encounter - back in 2020 i was buying a lot of older pokemon games to fill holes in my collection, either games i never owned or games that i lost over the years from childhood, and as for my missing gen 3 games, i ended up going for japanese copies of firered and sapphire instead of english because having foreign carts is neat but mostly they're just a lot cheaper. buying secondhand pokemon games is always fun because often times the seller doesn't wipe or even check the save file and especially if the save file has a lot of playtime, they're like time capsules from a stranger right. so both games come in and the sapphire has nothing interesting but i'm perusing the boxes of this firered and uhhh

LMAO my initial reaction says it all, i literally just found this thing on a completely random firered cart i bought! it was not advertised to have mew in it on the ebay listing, in fact the seller i bought from sells a LOT of imported japanese pokemon games (and other gba titles) so i imagine he just has a pile of these and he picked out a random one to mail me without so much as checking what was on it.

of course mythical pokemon on gen 3 carts are dubious, it's not like it's particularly hard to gameshark a mythical pokemon, especially considering that i've gotten a secondhand file before with shit like a box full of Deoxys caught at level 2 on the first route in hoenn LOL... so i was pretty serious about checking for legality on this thing as best i could - backed up the save file and inspected it in pkhex, all data was 100% accurate to the event and also reasonable RNG wise, like normal random IVs and stuff... checked for archived versions of this event mew, none of them were identical to online injectable ones, which means the owner couldn't have downloaded and injected it... and most of all, context clues

here's ancient pictures of this mew traded to my english leafgreen so it's readable for everyone - i had not done anything with this mew yet so it's completely untouched from how i found it here. we can tell from looking at this that whoever owned this mew was training it with the exp share as its still holding it and is level 23 despite being met at level 10, and the moveset... solarbeam, mega punch, dragon claw?? very random moveset that i can only imagine a child using. this mew looks like it was played with by its owner legitimately. additionally not shown here, the firered cart had a lot of playtime and like 2/3 of the dex complete, the boxes were full of pokemon that the owner had been breeding and a few unhatched eggs, like i hatched one and it was a completely normal eevee so they may have been getting extra eevees for pokedex purposes etc.

basically i cannot 100% confirm this mew was obtained legitimately without teleporting back in time and getting that japanese movie preorder bonus myself, but there is literally nothing strange about this mew and the save file it comes from is well loved and appeared to be played by a child doing normal pokemon stuff. so for all intents and purposes, this mew is definitely legit to me. actually insane happenstance. i have never gotten anything this crazy from a secondhand file before

think of it this way. some japanese kid in 2005 preorders a pokemon movie > he goes to the store to redeem it for a mew in person. in 2005. in japan. > he plays with the mew a bit > at some point he stops playing pokemon > he sells the game to some random american seller after never wiping the save or removing the mew > the american seller buys jp pokemon games in bulk to resell on ebay so he has a ton of them and probably doesn't check them for what's on them or the old save files > when i order it from this random ebay listing, the american seller picks a random fire red cartridge out of his bulk stash and mails it to me > it ends up in my hands 15 years later after the kid first got this mew

like holy shit it's a small fucking world huh

another old convo from the RM discord because i'm nostalgic about it, i had just started talking here at the time... i'm gonna be honest the ribbon master challenge and the people i met through it genuinely changed my life and this mew came into my life at the perfect time so it means a lot to me on top of being insanely cool

anyways i went on about that longer than necessary but yeah bless my mew i love him

[revalentinee]

Pokemon Legends Z-A: Starter Prediction (but it's actually about more than that)

Since the announcement of this surprisingly early return to Kalos, there's been a lot of speculation regarding the starters. Following the trend of Legends: Arceus, we're expecting the starters to be ones from other regions. Snivy and Piplup seem like really likely choices given their inspirations, with things more up in the air for the fire starter. However, I have a different Idea.

The starters for Legends: Z-A will be...

...Chespin, Fennekin and Froakie, the same starters pokemon X and Y had.

Why, you may ask? A couple reasons, or rather, one main one...

Mega Evolution will be making its grand return in ZA. When this feature was first introduced, it was a way to breathe new life into old designs, without having to commit to a new evolution-even accessiable to pokemon who already had a three-stage line. This idea for rejuvinating old pokemon has stuck around, but not in the same way.

Gen 7 decided to leave Megas as they were and brought along Regional Variants. Generation 8 cut megas entirely, but brought the variants back alongside new evolutions of those variants and Gigantamax Forms. Legends: Arceus continued the variant + evo angle, including the starters...

...and then, gen 9 only gave only two old pokemon variants, with Paradox Pokemon taking up the majority of the "revamp old designs" idea as well as the small amount of so-called "convergent" pokemon, or regional fakes. Quite a few old pokemon even got straight-up normal evolutions.

My point is, when Game Freak makes a new way to rejuvenate old designs, the old way is reduced or not used at all...could the same not be true when bringing back an old idea? To put it bluntly, The Kalos Starters will receive Mega Evolutions.

-Lack of Kalos Megas. Out of all the pokemon introduced in XY, only Diancie received a Mega Evolution. The reasoning apparently being to let these pokemon stand on their own first, but it's been long enough, hasn't it? Especially for these three.

A few reasons to back up why this could be the case:

-Limited Scope. Legends: ZA is stated to be taking place entirely within Lumiose City. and while we know little of the specifics, one big city as opposed to an entire region leaves a lot less room for possible regional variants. All the more likely the old gimmick will take most if not complete focus.

-Starter Saturation. Assuming Legends: ZA beings back all previous mega evolutions, both the kanto and hoenn sets of starters will be bouncing around Lumiose. With the Kalos starters included as well, that's three sets of starters for one game. Legends Arceus only had two, and as shown with that game's 240-ish amount of pokemon, Legends will likely have a more limited pokedex than the main series. Feels like too much to throw in a fourth set.

-Galarian Precedent. The Base game for Pokemon Sword and Shield did not give its starters Gigantamax forms, but the DLC for it did. It's likely the same idea, but for megas, was intended for whatever XY followup was scrapped back in the early 2010s.

-Once isn't a trend. Some might site Legend Arceus' use of other starters as a trope of the "Legends" series, but Legends Arceus was only one game. We have no idea how much or how little of that game's ideas will continue into this one.

And well...They're in one game! The complete set of Kalos starters only had one set of games to enjoy being those starters, while starters of previous and later generations had multiple sets, or at least DLC continuation, to be >your< first partner in. I think they need another shot while not competing with pokemon that have had more chances to be picked, like snivy or piplup.

And...yeah, as someone who loves regional variants, speculated on what variants of other starters could look like and even somewhat preferts variants to mega evolution as a concept...I might be a little bummed if this prediction comes true. But the more I thought about it, the more likely this seemed, and the true Kalos starters frankly deserve getting what the kanto and hoenn starters got. Besides...

look at him face :)

[ace-trainguys]

Old Art October! Not sure when this one was, but pretty early. Featuring an oc taking the role of the Legends Arceus protag and Ingo.

I still haven't settled on a name for the oc, but I'm calling him Shawn currently. He's from a world like the real one in that pokemon games exist (and unlike the real one in that there are superpowers.) So when he got sent to Hisui he had vague pokemon knowledge, but not enough to identify Ingo.

Once Shawn completed the pokedex and caught Arceus, he was like hey can we get Ingo home? Because Shawn grew attached to Ingo (because he's starved for positive feedback and Ingo is generous with complements especially over battles). Arceus was like I shall send both of thee to the correct time period, and leave finding the proper place to thee. Let me know if or when thou wishes to return to Hisui.

Then, this comic!

Transcript below the cut.

Image 1

Shawn: Okay, so first we're...

Image 2

Shawn: ... actually first we should get modern clothes.

Image 3

Shawn: Okay!

Arrow pointing to Ingo: literally only got a new shirt

Arrows pointing to Shawn: kept the scarf (it's cold), graphic tee and jacket, backpack, jeans, pokemon world converse

Image 4

Shawn: So first we're going to google you (I don't know how common of a name Ingo is, but it's worth a shot)

Ingo: Ah, I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar with "googling"

Shawn: (It could be called something different here)

Image 5

Shawn: It's a search engine, that you can use to find things on the Internet.

Ingo, offscreen: I see...

Image 6

Ingo: What is the "Internet"?

Image 7

Shawn, internally: What... IS the Internet???

Image 8

Shawn: It's like... a bunch of information that- that you can use computers to view??

Image 9

Shawn: I dunno how to explain it, it was such a basic background part of my life before Hisui that I never really thought about it...

Ingo: (cough) I see...

Image 10

Ingo: So our first stop is to "google" me on the "Internet" to see if there is information about myself on it?

Image 11

Shawn, internally: Ingo, that made you sound ancient... I can hear the air quotes...

Shawn, aloud: Yup! And if that doesn't work, we'll travel to find something you recognize!

Image 12

Shawn: Y'know, I bet if we go to every train station, we'll find where you're from.

Ingo: That is an excellent idea!

Shawn: So... full speed ahead?

Ingo: YES! ALLLL ABOAAARD!

[gen4grl]

rant of things i hate the most about pokemon!

1. version exclusive pokemon & games in general. peak capitalism and pretty rich for a company who’s slogan was “gotta catch them all”. even if you want two different game versions, make the mons available from the other game only accessible in postgame, like unlocking the natdex in previous gens.

2. trade evolutions. fully believe there should be one npc in each game (that isn’t a scam artist) that allows you to complete trade evolutions, whether that be for using the mon on your team or purely for pokedex completion. the fact so many people have just never used such iconic pokemon like gengar or alakazam before because of this stupid mechanic is insane. legends having the items in game was literally a game changer and why it wasn’t continued in SV is beyond me.

3. locked events. the way these events are genuinely lost in time now (without hacking) is beyond stupid. while mythicals don’t tend to play a large part in the storyline of games compared to legendaries, why even put them in the game if not accessible for everyone? just put them in postgame and have the events be triggered by talking to some npc or doing a weird ass task?

4. nostalgia bias within the fandom. no one is forcing you to play the new games if you think bw2 was the last good game. people should be able to praise elements of SV without some annoying 30 year old man crying about the graphics, we all played the game bro, you don’t need to tell us. this also goes the other way seeing newer fans thinking everything pre gen 5 is a massive waste of time and a wash. it’s not hard or impossible to enjoy things while also having criticisms. also being aware of gaming capabilities at the time when these games were being published before making a dumb ass “critique” (so much johto ‘criticism’ can be attributed to this) … yeah like no shit gen 1 pokemon look “boring” compared to modern pokemon… its called 20 + years of time passing

5. fans who complain about lack of world-building but don’t take the time to READ the story or talk to NPCs. “bw has the best story but alder is a shit champion” literally makes no sense please re-read the game you just played IM BEGGING!!! genuinely please don’t talk or start discussions in this vain if you can’t repeat the BASIC premise of the CHILDS GAME you played

[gojonanami]

sabina... how do you feel about pokemon 👀

thinkin about Suguru being a pokedex completer while satoru overthrows the region champ at like 13 😭

nanami and choso would make such good gym leaders... encouraging the challengers to grow and bond with their pokemon 🥺

sukuna singlehandedly being the biggest problem in the region for any reason 💀

oh my god I love Pokémon — it’s been my obsession since I was five years old haha

oh completely accurate - gojo is so champion coded while suguru is so Pokédex completion coded (especially since his cursed manipulation is kind of like Pokémon in a way hahah)

nanami and Haibara as gym leaders 😭🥹 that’s so cute and Shoko would be the pokecenter head and heal your Pokémon for you!!

oh Sukuna would just be a force of nature like a Pokémon that you have to defeat, while kenjaku and his curses are like the team of that region you have to defeat 😭😭😭

[revalentine2]

mmMAXIE OF TEAM mmMAGMA - Team Objective plays Pokemon Emerald

Sungaze is such a silly guy.

What is it, Archaludon? Can you both just get out of my way? I need to get that Titan pokemon!

What if I could offer you both a team with a much less confusing name? It's very...objective about what it's referencing! Ahaha!

Alright, should check myself before I get in too over my head...this is our first time fighting another evil team leader, we should play this with caution. Save our star player for last...Everyone ready?

FIGHT ME, MAXIE! I will awaken what sleeps within this mountain myself! ...but first explain to me what exactly it is.

>:[ SPILL THE BEANS OLD MAN

Let's crush him! I bet he doesn't even have a single pokemon that's made of the earth.

As I thought, just a dog. Patricia, take that hit and paralyze it!

It's been fully paralyzed quite a few turns, but we haven't gotten a single defense drop with rock smash, and furthermore our accuracy's now in the dirt...

or should I say the sand! Haha!

...Laugh at your own jokes later, Roseanne.

FINALLY! A defense drop! We're missing a lot now, though, so Bulwark-come in and give this thing a taste of its own medicine! Mud-slap! Your healing items won't save you, Maxie!

Patricia comes back in to seal the KO! You're losing, Maxie, give up!

Ha! Your camel looked intimidating, but it completely wiffs its attack on the swap-in! Sungaze, let it have it! Secret Power and Confusion!

And we got the confusion! Hit yourself, you stupid camel!

Completely overwhelmed! Sungaze is doing amazing!

And a zubat...a ZUBAT!? This is nothing but a motley menagerie of mammals! How can you claim to love the land but not embrace the pokemon who are of the earth itself? I just beat you with three of them! I didn't even need my ace!

...Nice crit, Sungaze :]

Now explain to me, Maxie, what are you hoping to accomplish here? What is the pokemon you're attempting to awaken? It couldn't be...R-

Oh he took off.

Coward.

Archie, leave me alone.

Mine now.

While heading down the mountain, we ran into this...seemingly lost Magma grunt? Saying something about a HIDEOUT...Hey! I'm supposed to be the one with the cool mountain hideout! No fair!

Wait. I have a hideout! It's...a little empty, but these guys just have some wall that doesn't even have a hole in it! I'm the one on top now!

...What...what is THAT!? It's so cute!!! A BALTOY? This random trainer on the jagged pass had it-I must find one for myself! Quick, pokedex, direct me to its location.

Oh it's in the desert. That I cannot currently progress into.

...Aw, COME ON!

Lavaridge seems like a nice place to relax after all that chaos. I can't help but be a little miffed, though. No closer to finding the Titans, no answers from Team Magma, this meteorite doesn't seem to do anything, and I can't even go into the desert to get that Baltoy thing...I've become so strong, we've become so strong, but we're still as aimless as ever.

Well, there's still one thing we can do...

Prove the might of Object Pokemon against this gym! See you next time for that. Team Objective-because Object pokemon are Objectively the best!

Team: StepStone the Graveler (F) Bulwark the Aron (M) Skybomb the Koffing (F) Goo Goo the Grimer (F) Patricia the Nosepass (F) Sungaze the Solrock

[bhawk-goose]

I've just started watching the Pokemon anime from the beginning for some reason and I already have some thoughts. I'm just using this post as a journal.

Firstly, Professor Oak is a cruel man, he knew all the pokemon other than Pikachu were taken and still made Ash go through the process of picking up each.

Also, this show is like 30 years old so you'd think comedy would be different, but for some reason Pikachu playing baseball with is pokeball is the funniest shit ever to me.

Pikachu has already shown it is far too powerful. I get that pokemon are generally more powerful than humans, there's a reason trainers have their pokemon beat the shit out of wild pokemon on their behalf instead of just doing it themselves, but god. Pikachu knocked out twelve people, most of which were probably adults. AND Ash is also godlike, he was the closest to Pikachu. He was the one that the electric current went through to knock out the twelve people in the crowd, but he was fucking FINE. Just some scorch marks, that's it. This is a ten year old child, with that level of current he should be dead. He should be just a charred skeleton.

Has Ash done no research or is only being able to say their name specific to Pikachu? It's an animal, what the fuck did he expect? Does he also expect a response when he asks a dog who the goodest boy is?

Next, Pikachu hates being confined, so removing the waist-leash made sense, but why the gloves? They weren't even touching Pikachu, they were on his hands.

why is there boss music playing when Pidgey appears and Ash thinks he's gonna fight it? He's specifically fighting it because it's easy. Also I'm putting it on the same line cuz it's the same scene basically, what kind of yawn was that? Pikachu's "cha" was clearly supposed to be a yawn, but that did not sound tired at all. That is what yawns would sound like if we did them when we had too much energy.

remember when I said trainers have their pokemon beat the shit out of wild ones on their behalf? Apparently not Ash. I'm convinced that Ash is from our world, but doesn't know much about Pokemon, so he's just heard of it in passing and knows nothing. And when he was in our world he never encountered any non-human life.

"enjoy your last moments of freedom"? Ash isn't even trying to be a caring pokemon master, he is just straight up has no sympathy for them. I'm glad this kid never met an animal in the real world, at least pokemon can fight back a lot better.

What was that laugh at Ash's failure? That was far too human. I hate that. Pikachu is a straight up demon. New theory, ontop of Ash being from our world, there are demons(or some kind of demon equivalent) in the pokemon world. Pikachu is one of them, and pokeballs are like holy water to them. That's why Pikachu doesn't want to be in the pokeball.

I know this is pokemon, and there are tank turtles with no clear sign(to my knowledge) of how they get the water they shoot, and rats with unlimited supplies of electricity, and sentient magnets, but Pidgey is none of those. Pidgey is a normal fucking bird, nothing special about it. Where the fuck did it get that sand from??

the pokedex is fucking amazing. Earlier I thought it was just coincidental that it was a bit late, but no. That thing is alive, and it fucking HATES Ash.

why the hell do wild pokemon get jealous of trained pokemon? Just get in the ball and you'll be a trained pokemon. And trainers openly do not care about the pokemon they catch, Ash already showed that.

the way it cut straight from Ash and Pikachu passing a Magikarp in the river to a gyarados makes it look like that thing just evolved on the spot.

Misty not caring about Ash at all is completely fair. I don't care if she doesn't have any context to know what happenned, there is a hurt animal.

"Pikachu, this can't... happen" he's not wrong, it can't, it's only the first episode of the show and Pikachu's a main character.

"the town of pallet" sounds completely different from "pallet town", and why does Ash think he's a noble defender, he's ten, and he's defending a rat that kocked out twelve people.

Pikachu just created a giant sky beam. That was not a lightning strike, it was like a mile thick. Pikachu is not a demon, it's far too powerful, it is satan himself.

anyway, those were my thoughts on the first episode of the pokemon anime. It was like 11 minutes long, but I took like 30 to write about it. If I get any likes on this I'll keep posting my thoughts as I watch it.

[imfluentinfangirlandgay]

A Father's Resolve - Ch 5

Ingo returns after a decade - with two extra cars in tow. Years later, his kids are swallowed up by time in the same way he was. Will he be able to find them? Will they be able to make it out alive?

Word Count: ~1600

They arrived at the location swiftly. It seemed like the fields were pretty close to the village. The twins followed a few security guys in red and Laventon to a small clearing with a trunk, a campfire, and a couple tents. Some people stood around, talking. 

"This is the Fieldlands camp," Laventon announced. "If you ever need to heal up or just need a break, think of this as a safe spot." The twins followed him into the camp as he greeted some of the people here. 

"Now," he said, "your trial is to catch a Bidoof, a Shinx, and a Starly, yes? You know how to throw pokeballs, but you need to practice the ways of survey work. Some members of the Survey Corp have offered to help show you the basics." Two people in blue waved from the fire and stood. 

"Let's get started, shall we?"

–

The Bidoof was a piece of cake. Rei even petted it as he was pressing the ball to its furry head. Two others watched on, not a care in the world. 

The hard part with Starly was getting close enough to catch without startling it, but Rei remembered all those times in Chargestone, trying desperately to find the rare Tynamo and manage to hit the teeny tiny thing with a ball. Needless to say, Starly was nothing, especially after the tall grass trick. 

Shinx was a tad more difficult. The Survey Corps member showing them watched it with disdain and she described being struck by a Thunder Shock. Pokemon attacked people in this region? Now he understood why Dad was always talking about how dangerous it was. 

They battled the Shinx, but it seemed too young to have learned any electric moves. Even Oshawott excelled against it and they each had an electric cat pokemon in no time. 

"Congratulations, you two! You've completed the first trial and are well on your way to completing the pokedex! This calls for a commemorative photograph!" Laventon pulled out a box with a lens on the front. Rei assumed it was an old camera. 

The flash just about blinded Rei on impact. He had to blink back the spots burned into his retinas as Laventon shook out the photograph. "Excellent. Now, let us not keep Captain Cyllene waiting! Time to head back to Jubilife, eh?" Rei shook off some dirt from his jacket. Akari pulled a leaf out of her silver hair. They followed Laventon again, heading back to Jubilife. 

"Do you have a bad feeling about all this?" Rei whispered to his sister in Unovan. 

Akari nodded. "But what else can we do? We have nowhere else to go." 

Rei couldn't argue with that. They continued to talk to each other for a bit in Unovan, not wanting to be eavesdropped on. "I wonder what year it is… what year did Dad say we were born?" 

"I think 1836," Akari said. 

"That sounds right." Rei pondered dates. "Because we left in 1841 and he was dropped around 1830."

"Well, that doesn't make any sense," Laventon said in perfect Unovan, not looking at them. The twins both froze. He could speak Unovan? "I'm from Galar," he added, smiling back at them. "I did not mean to intrude, but I could not help but notice the inconsistency. It is currently 1831. There is no way you could have been born five years from now!" 

They said nothing for a moment. They looked at each other. Rei shrugged. Akari blinked at him three times. Rei nodded and then gestured to Laventon. Akari sighed and nodded. With that settled, Rei spoke, still making sure to be in Unovan, "We think we were taken through time," Rei admitted. "We uh… immigrated to a different region at a young age, but we were born in Hisui."

"Time, eh?" Laventon looked up to the rift hanging above Mount Coronet. "Then it must be a space-time rift." 

"Please don't tell any-" 

"Professor?" One of the guards was watching them speak. "What are you talking about?" He could only speak Hisuian, Rei assumed. 

"Oh, they believe they must have been brought from Galar. It is their homeland, as well as mine. We were just discussing where from. Galar is a rather large region!" Laventon fibbed. The guardsmen shrugged and continued to walk. 

The twins said nothing else, but nodded at Laventon in thanks, as they continued on. 

—------ 

Emmet sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He knew he could be difficult. He knew Elesa could be difficult. He knew Ingo could be difficult. 

But by Arceus, it was hard to get anything done when they were all being difficult in opposite ways. 

Ingo had his day bag on his shoulder, haphazardly packed, as he stood paces away from the door, a feral look in his eyes. He hadn't shaved at all, his lengthening beard only adding to the madness. Elesa was standing in front of the door, the only thing between it and Ingo, staring him down, her eyes like daggers. Emmet was trying to wedge between them to make them not fight each other. The very air was charged and electrified, a battle going on without any pokemon involved. Emmet took deep breaths. He had to be the rational one, and as such he had to keep his head level. 

"I'm going," Ingo ground out, his voice raspy. 

"Not until you take a nap first," Elesa countered, her lips pursed. "Or a shower."

"What if something happens!" 

"Then we go a bit further in time and stop it. You're acting like we can only travel to a single spot." 

"I'd rather just have nothing happen in the first place!"

"That's what time travel is, idiot!"

Ingo grinned his teeth as he huffed and stamped his foot. "We're wasting time!"

"We can't do that if we're traveling!" 

And that was enough to break his resolve. "WOULD BOTH OF YOU SHUT UP!" Emmet finally snapped. He was done being the rational one. They wanted to fight like they were children? Then he'd act like a child. Both of them jumped, surprised by his outburst. He shoved Ingo back, nearly knocking him over. "What's going to happen when we get the kids home and see you've worked yourself so hard you lost years off your life? You already look like a walking corpse! A strong gust will blow you over! What will they think," he growled at his brother, who looked at him with wide eyes. His hands trembled on the strap of the bag. "I've lost you once and I'm not losing you again." And then he rounded on Elesa. "And you! None of us knows how time travel works. None of us knows what's happening or how it's going to happen or how easy it'd be to fix. We want your help and we need your help but for the love of Arceus, both of you need to SHUT UP! None of this is helping anyone right now, least of all the twins!" He stomped off to the table and grabbed a ball, opening it and releasing Chandelure. "You wanna talk about wasting time and then just stand here and scream at each other? Fine! I can waste some time." She swirled in the air silently, taking in the scene in confusion. "Chandelure," Emmet commanded, "take Ingo to his bed and make him sleep. I don't care what you have to do." 

She turned and saw the state that her Trainer had left himself in. Ingo protested, shouting incoherently as he was suddenly surrounded by a purple glow and lifted off his feet. "You can't just do that!"

"I can and I did!" Emmet screamed back. Ingo was dragged off to the other room by the ghost, his bag falling off his shoulder and onto the floor even as he yelled. "I don't want to see you come out of that room for at least four hours! And I swear to Arceus, those bags under your eyes had better be gone!" Then he pointed at Elesa. "And you need to take a walk! Have a battle, get some coffee, do something other than just screaming in my living room. I want you back here after you've cooled off, and no sooner! Do I make myself clear?!" 

Elesa scoffed at him and threw open the door, slamming it behind her. 

Emmet stood in the middle of the room for a moment longer, his fists clenched and shaking. Then he sighed. His shoulders slumped, his knees buckling. His face lost its smile. The exhaustion washed over him in a wave as the rage drained, nearly sending him crashing down.

He sunk to the couch and sighed, propping up an elbow on the arm and holding up his head with his hand. Galvantula crawled to his lap, clicking her mandible in concern. He sighed and petted her soft fur as she got comfortable, looking up at him with her big blue eyes. "What are we going to do? It's hardly been over a week and we're already losing it." He leaned down so that he was more horizontal, laying on the couch, his head on a pillow as Galvantula moved to lay on his chest. The constant hum of static in her abdomen was comforting. "I shouldn't have shouted like that, Butternut. I want them back, too. I miss them. I'm worried about them." He sighed again as he patted her head. He could feel the prick of tears in the back of his eyes. "I don't know what to do." His voice choked up.

He continued to lay there as the sun set outside the back door. Galvantula nuzzled against his chin and tucked her pedipalps under her head as a pillow. Slowly, his eyes drooped shut, and sleep finally overcame him. 

[First] - [Previous] - [Next]

[shinysamurott9]

How I nuked my 400 Hour Save of Pokemon Heartgold

So, recently I've been playing through the Pokemon Generations doing a Ribbon Master Quest, obtaining every Ribbon a single or set of Pokemon can possibly obtain by sending them up through the series. Just yesterday I was on the tail end of finishing the Gen 4 segment of the challenge.

I have a team of 5 Ribbon Masters currently; Mushi, my Shiny Heracross from Pokemon Colosseum which I hunted specifically for this Ribbon Master Quest, Velos and Seibzehn, a Latios and Metagross I raised to use in Emerald's Battle Frontier, Sparda, my Shiny Arceus I hunted using the void glitch in Pearl and Nero, my Shiny Giratina from Sinjoh Ruins. The only ribbons left for them to get was the Legend Ribbon for beating Red and most pertinent to this story, the World Ability Ribbon.

For those unaware, the World Ability Ribbon is obtained by reaching Rank 5 or higher in the Wifi Room in Gen 4's Battle Tower. Despite what you may think, this is still obtainable thanks to fan made servers which restore old wifi functionalities in Generations 4 & 5. The thing is though the Wifi room is bullshit. The opponents you fight are recorded teams from other players and unfortunately, on top of the highly optimised teams you’ll encounter, you'll also encounter many teams of blatantly hacked stuff like Machamps with OHKO Moves or Sturdy Shedinjas.

This is where I mention the fact that I just so happen to have a modded 3ds, which, among other things, let's me backup save data. So since the game was blatantly cheating anyway, I decided "Fuck it, I'm cheating too". How I did this was to fight one battle in the Wifi Room, and after winning, I'd use the rest option to save and exit the game. Then I'd backup that save file, so if I lost the next battle, I could restore that backup and try again, letting me continue my streak. A slow process but it would mean eventually, I would be able to climb the ranks high enough to get the World Ability Ribbon.

As you can imagine though, I was doing this process of reloading and backing up a lot, and at one point I restored a file incorrectly, taking out the game too early, causing the file to go blank. No problem I'll just restore the file again and if I was competent, that's wherethis would have ended. But, because of how much I was using Checkpoint, my muscle memory got a lite crosswired, so instead of restoring my file, I made a new backup over it, effectively erasing the entire thing.

For reference this included:

400 hrs of Gameplay, A Pokedex roughly 2/3rds complete, A fully developed Safari Zone, Several Pokemon from my various Gen 4 Playthroughs over the years, Every Arceus Plate, (Which are actually pretty difficult to get in HGSS), All 5 of my Ribbon Masters

And perhaps worst of all, my entire collection of Gen 4 shinies. This included:

My near back to back Shiny Luxio and Luxray from Platinum,

A shiny Darkrai and Shaymin I hunted with the Void Glitch

Several Radar and Safari Week Shinies

And a shiny of each Sinjoh Dragon.

Needless to say I was both pissed and devestated. There was some consolation, since I had backups of Gen 3 and Platinum, my Ribbon Masters and Battle Tower mons were safe. Everything else though, initially I was resigned to either losing them forever or trying very likely in vain to recreate as much as I could in PKHex which has it's own issues both logistically and ensuring they were legal, not helped at all by how bad the legality checker in PKHex actually is.

BUT

There was, one, just one saving grace. Fucking POKEMON BATTLE REVOLUTION

The way that Battle Revolution works is that you connect a Gen 4 Save File and it will make an exact copy of your boxes so you can use them in BR's various Colosseums. And of course I just so happened to have copied my boxes from HG a few months ago just after Safari Week meaning every pokemon I had nuked still existed! I had to hack my Wii U to dump the save file but because of that I was able to completely restore almost every single pokemon by copy pasting them back onto Heartgold.

Obviously still lost a lot in other areas but I really can't complain considering what I managed to restore.

As a sidenote, there was a similar incident way back where I accidentally erased my friend's Ruby Master File no shinieswere lost just a lot of progress. I think his reaction speaks for itself.

[mothwithapencil]

Speaking of Jacq: the other day my wife and I discovered why there's tons of pixiv ship art of him and Clavell. And looking into it, that's cool I think. Also some of his lines in SCVI threw me down a huge rabbit hole of analysis and speculation almost completely unrelated to shipping but very much related to character ages, the professors, Area Zero, the Pokedex, and the really fucked up technological Pokemon timeline. This contains heavy spoilers and gets kind of ramble-y so sit down and get comfortable.

It appears Jacq is older than one would initially assume. He and Clavell worked together as researchers a long time ago. This promptly throws a ton of shit into question (see the list above).

In Jacq's class he's talking about when he made the Pokedex app and says something like "But that was waaay before I started teaching. In fact, Director Clavell wasn't in education at that time either! He was a researcher working alongside me at the same facility," which would have to imply Jacq has been around for much longer than he appears.

He was a researcher, which requires a degree, worked at a facility with Clavell for enough time to develop a Pokedex, and then there's whatever amount of time "waaay before I started teaching" means.

It's incredibly likely that "the same facility" meant the Area Zero labs with the professors. Not only because Clavell was there too. Area Zero has tons of hexagon symbolism. Most notably the unidentified hexagon-shell pokemon that's allegedly coming in the DLC and the Zero Gate being covered in hexagons. Although it's just the shape of his glasses, Jacq working with Clavell who also worked with the professors at Area Zero seems too intentional of a design choice.

And tbh Jacq and the professors look like they could potentially be around the same age? Roughly? Trying to map out stuff timeline-age wise is difficult.

On the topic of what the hell happened with Clavell and the professors and apparently also Jacq, I think all of them experienced some accelerated hair graying due to being around fluctuating time machine shit for a while... Which idk how that would happen but it's cool as fuck! We don't know what the professors looked like when they died or what they would have looked like had they not died. They could have had some graying or other aging too, probably the most of anyone. My wife brought this up after I wrote all this, but this could also be why Jacq looks so much younger than he is. An unstable flow of time could definitely fuck with one's appearance in a couple ways methinks.

I also feel like Clavell would have been extremely stressed after the Area Zero stuff because he was closer with the professors. I can't imagine that knowing your close friend is in grave danger, locked in a room in the deepest part of the most dangerous area in the world, would just. Not have any physical effects from the stress. With all that potentially being the case, it's hard to say just how old Clavell is. This is NOT to say he's "young." He's middle aged at LEAST. But given the circumstances and the fact that Pokemon ages +appearances have zero consistency, it's definitely questionable. Cyrus looks Like That and he's 27. Lusamine looks Like That and she's over 40. There's wiggle room for sure.

Maybe Clavell's hair went white early because of stress. Maybe he ages like milk. Maybe jacq just likes older dudes. The world may never know. But the only thing that's clear is that, given the implied timeline, Jacq is not like, 27 as I had previously thought.

That all being said, the Pokemon timeline is incredibly complex and contradictory. Drayden allegedly lived before pokeballs existed and Clavell allegedly had to hand write his Pokedex, but I don't think either of them were alive during Legends Arceus so someone is lying. But hand writing the Pokedex would be understandable if Jacq's Pokedex was the first digital one in Paldea. Which brings up a whole other question: "if Kanto had digital Pokedexes nearly 30 years ago why don't the different regions share the technology with each other? Why is every new region just now developing a Pokedex?" So like. What the fuck is happening.

Is Clavell just saying he had to hand write his pokedex to fuck with you and Nemona because neither of you were alive and/or self aware like 15-20 years ago when the digital Paldea Pokedex was developed by Jacq? Possibly.

I'm hoping this history with Jacq and Clavell gets expanded upon in the DLC, especially given their connection to Area Zero, because this was honestly such an interesting topic to think about. I'd love to discuss it further if any of y'all actually read through this!