Heart Gold Kingslocke: Episode 8

Introduction/rules here.

At the back of the Cianwood Gym, examining a large machine. A chute runs down the middle of the building and dumps water on the head of the gym leader. Game Text: There is a large winch. Will you turn it?

Turning the winch. The waterfall chute rises up, the water stops flowing, and the waterfall over Chuck's head stops.

Chuck only has two Pokémon. They’re both much higher levels than mine – 29 and 31 – but they are also both open to manipulation, because Chuck’s signature move in this game is Focus Punch, which can be disrupted by attack damage. Only two of my Pokémon should be in danger of being petrified here, Paradise from Rock Slide and Killgore from Focus Punch, and in theory that shouldn’t be a problem for Killgore as long as he just keeps attacking. Even if we lose one or both of them, I’ll get one back if I can win the battle.

"VS" screen with a close-up of Chuck, a shirtless middle-aged man with bushy eyebrows and muttonchops, wearing white arm-wraps.

Well, here goes nothing.

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Anonymous asks:

What do you think shininess to do with Pokémon evolution, if anything? I remember in the Johto games, the shiny Gyarados was red because it was force-evolved from the naturally-red Magikarp, right? And is it a coincidence that Mega Charizard X has similar coloration to a shiny Charizard?

I’m sceptical. Like, what happens at Lake of Rage, supposedly, is that they’re forcing a whole bunch of Magikarp to evolve. The red Gyarados that you fight isn’t the only Gyarados there, it just happens to have caught everyone’s attention because… well, it’s red. Team Rocket’s original plan in Mahogany Town (aside from perfecting their radio technology for their later plot in Goldenrod City) was to turn a tidy profit converting useless Magikarp into valuable Gyarados – not just one, but several. Honestly they probably would have been better off without the extra attention drawn by the red one, but once people did start getting curious, they opportunistically started making a bit of extra money on top of that by setting up a toll booth near the lake. Or at least, that was my reading of it.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Mega Charizard X and shiny Charizard are both black, but I don’t think that’s the direction of the causal relationship; I think they’re both black because of a third, unrelated factor – namely, black Charizard are super badass (also, none of the other mega evolutions have this relationship, and the only one who does, Charizard, also has another mega form that doesn’t).

Team Rocket (part 2 of 2)

Let’s recap: Team Rocket disbands following the events of Red and Blue, squirming from the embarrassment of having their criminal empire taken down by what amounts to an angry, homeless, ten-year-old amateur toreador. Where police, private security companies and government agencies failed, your character succeeds – I will leave it to you to decide whether this is a reflection on the awesomeness of the average Japanese ten-year-old or the uselessness of the average Japanese law enforcer. Let’s not poke holes in the plot though; it’s shaky enough as it is and probably can’t take much more. Let’s look instead at what happens three years after Giovanni dissolves his organization, when Team Rocket returns in force, this time in the western province of Johto. Continue reading “Team Rocket (part 2 of 2)” →