Right, then, back to try another route.
…oh. There’s a shadow ninja just standing in plain sight in front of the other route entrance. Thought they were all super disguise guys.
Heh heh. You don’t really think you can take the DNA Splicers back, do you?
Well, I was thinking that but then you appeared for me to fight. Why are you still here? You got what you wanted, escape already!
I mean maybe you’re here to delay me or something, but come on, you shouldn’t need that. Just go hide.
See that’s what I mean, just do the opposite of the ninjappearing you’re doing here and escape.
He’s got two L50 pawniards and a L52 absol.
Shadow Triad: Awww. How unlucky. I don’t happen to be the one holding the DNA Splicers. I was just buying time for the others to escape.
Seriously, you shouldn’t need to. I have no idea how I even found you.
Cheerio, bye-bye, whatever.
And he ninjavanished. Not going to complain about the experience points I just got, but really, can’t they just do that to not get caught in the first place?
Drayden: Oh no! Ah! No!
Also, why bother delaying me when this guy is here to do your job for you?
No, no, it’s not your fault, Farla. You were impressive! It’s me who’s let everybody down.
You imply there was ever a point you were helpful.
oh god the xtransceiver is ringing
Gary and Cheren, my least favorites! Where’s Bianca, she’s marginally more tolerable at times.
At least Failry’s looking all frowny. That makes me feel better.
A strange ship was flying toward Opelucid City, right?! I saw it, too! I’m en route!
Cheren! That’s Team Plasma’s ship, isn’t it?
Since when did you know about that?
Yes. No doubt about it… Anyway, I’ll be arriving in just a moment!
OK, I’ll leave things to you!
Look, game. You want to do back and forth dialogues? MY CHARACTER NEEDS TO BE ABLE TO TALK.
Farla! If you run into any trouble, call me!
Never you fucking killstealler.
Drayden: Augh! If there were only two of me!
Shut up and let me go do stuff.
Then I could protect the town and chase after them, too!
They were only attacking the town in the first place because you’d hidden something they wanted here. Also, it’s now nicely protected by that healthy layer of preserving ice.
And Cheren’s arrived. Yay.
Cheren: Farla. Drayden, glad to see you’re safe as well.
Drayden: Hello, Cheren. You have certainly grown. I hear you filled in for Lenora by becoming the Gym Leader in Aspertia City.
Cheren: Thanks. We should save catching up for later.
Thank you, Cheren. You aren’t off the list but you can live a little longer as I target others first.
I have a good idea of where Team Plasma is hiding.
And seems you didn’t tell Failry, and I’m finally getting to actually be the hero. You’re getting so tolerable.
The place with the lowest temperature in the Unova region right now is an area close to Humilau City. Drayden, please protect Opelucid City! Gary and I will find Team Plasma!
what
Gary and I will find Team Plasma!
WHAT
Gary and I will find Team Plasma!
WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT?
The game isn’t even pretending I’m important any longer? Fucking Cheren has shown up only to inform Drayden that he and another character will be dealing with Team Plasma. Perhaps he’ll offer for me to tag along and watch them fight everyone.
Drayden: Very well. I’ll do my part–and thanks. The chase I’ll leave to you! But…don’t do anything reckless.
None of this is needed.
You know what else was great about the days when people were talking directly to you in monologues? You can’t have those go on forever. By nature of the format, all the unnecessary back and forth of pointless pleasantries is missing. It has to be directly relevant and can’t get too off topic.
Cheren: Farla! I could use your help, if you’re willing.
Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.
You’re a skilled Trainer who can go toe-to-toe with Team Plasma.
I FUCKING CRUSH THEM AND THAT’S EVEN AFTER HAVING TO WASTE MY TIME BEATING FAILRY’S STUPID POKEMON UNCONSCIOUS FIRST AND THEN FIGHT THE REST OF THE BATTLE ONE ON TWO.
That’s my definition of useful.
I will burn everything you ever loved before killing you.
Drayden, we’re off!
He just leaves.
Drayden: Humilau City, huh… Is there anything to the north of Undella Town?
How the hell would I know?
Farla, protect Pokemon from Team Plasma!
You know I’d love to, but my schedule is so busy with all that murder I have to commit.
All people should think for themselves about the nature of the relationship between people and Pokemon.
Have any of you thought that maybe a phrase that assumes pokemon aren’t a type of person is just proving how ingrained the problem and bias is in your culture’s way of thinking?
And that if they really aren’t people and capable of making decisions like people, maybe you need to stop excusing everything with “but the pokemon wants to be here!”
It’s not something Team Plasma gets to decide for everyone.
Let me tell you a secret.
The reason people say stuff about how everyone should decide for themselves what’s right isn’t really because everyone should decide. It’s just that we generally lack the ability to enforce whatever the actual right option is, and often the time to figure out what it is.
For example, take home schooling, which is basically a huge resource drain with a side of being worse than actual school half the time because now the kids think dinosaurs don’t exist. Or let’s consider vaccinations. Or whether or not someone’s ready to be a parent. Guns? How about if you believe crystals heal better than doctors? Feel like paying out everything to faith healers or psychics? Hey, homeopathic medicine, that totally will cure your cancer.
There is actually an amazing amount of stuff where we’re only letting people “decide for themselves” because no one wants to deal with it.
And, as is particularly relevant to this metaphor, when we say “for themselves” we mean “and anyone else they’re in a position of power over”.
And that’s what we see here. People should decide what they think of the relationship. If they’re fine with it, then that’s all. Hell, if it actually is fine and they just think it isn’t, which is totally possible when you complain in the same breath that Team Plasma tried to trick people and laud Team Plasma for making people think, then that’s all too, the pokemon still have no actual say in it.
Insisting everything be done on an individual basis isn’t championing free thought. It’s just abdicating responsibility.
…but anyway.
So, going to my right then brings me to more of the melting ice, and beyond that, Village Bridge is untouched. I’m kind of disappointed. The few rumors I heard about this game implied that Unova was going to be covered in ice from the start, and when the ship showed up, I thought the icing had finally begun. Well, maybe soon Plasma will return and freeze everything.
Where was I supposed to go? Undella?
Ooh, right, items! Got a pearl and a heart scale. And I guess now I go up the next route and then…somewhere?
Hey, maybe I can finally see the aquarium, though!
Phone thing is ringing.
It’s Failry with his usual glare. I have to admit it’s more tolerable to deal with him when he’s all scowly looking.
Farla! Where are you? Undella Town? Got it! From there, go through the Marine Tube, and come straight to Humilau City!
Dammit, game, I wanted to see it for its own sake.
Also if this is where the last badge is, how the fuck were people supposed to get it?
Okay, fine. In I go.
The Marine Tube. It’s an undersea tunnel, so to speak.
…isn’t that exactly what it is?
Do you know how such tunnels are made? It’s quite simple! They’re built on land and then sunk into the sea! Without Pokemon, the construction would have been impossible.
Will I ever be hearing about something done for pokemon by people?
…oh wow. It’s actually really cool.
It’s set so the camera’s at more of an eye-level angle, and you can see pokemon swimming around. It reminds me a little of Pokemon Snap.
Why can’t we have more games like Pokemon Snap instead of just making more frills to the plots of the main games? Pokemon Snap was awesome! Even just re-releasing the original game with the ability to stop at places when you want to would be enough for me to buy it again.
…can you imagine how great a modern version of Pokemon Snap would be? With more pokemon and more behaviors for the pokemon and the ability to move around more places better?
Midway through it goes back to an overhead view, probably to better show off the fact there’s some deep trench, but I wish they’ve stuck to looking out of the tunnel instead.
I mean, it still looks okay, but not as good.
Oh. My. God. The plot for this game is even worse than the first B/W. Just reading this is making me miss Ruby. At least in that game i was acknowledged as a hero of my own right, even if a few people thought it was a fluke.
“For example, take home schooling, which is basically a huge resource drain with a side of being worse than actual school half the time because now the kids think dinosaurs don’t exist.”
Oh, come on, Farla. Plenty of people mock this as a homeschooling myth, but I am one of the homeschoolers who had a terrible experience with it, and I wouldn’t mind you talking about how it ruins children’s social skills and depresses them, but this is just a ridiculously low blow. My father is a life-long atheist and if I got anything out of homeschooling it was a decent education at the very least.
Again most homeschoolers would be all over you for perpetuating stereotypes. I won’t. Just for God’s sakes pick your battles.
…Did that decent education include the definition of the word “half”?
I say that as someone who had a mostly positive experience with homeschooling and still doesn’t think that comment was in any way out of line, because I *know* I’m an outlier. It’s not like she’s saying homeschooling should be illegal, just that it’s usually a bad decision.
Homeschooling me was obviously a bad decision. I will reiterate, many people might go after Farla just for saying something bad about homeschooling and encouraging all the homeschooling myths.
I wouldn’t, and in fact I am angered by all the articles listing “homeschooling myths”, because many of them, were very true for me.
Which is why I take such offense to this complaint because it is actually nothing more than a pathetic “homeschooling myth” to be laughed at. If even I am offended by it, you’ve done something wrong.
I thought I made this perfectly clear the first time around, but since somehow you didn’t grasp it: I AM NOT AGAINST FARLA INSULTING HOMESCHOOLING. JUST PICK YOUR BATTLES.
I would hardly consider bringing it up in passing in the context of making a larger point about a completely different issue waging a “battle” over it. The person here I think needs to put some more thought into picking their battles is you. And maybe me, for indulging you.
That was a figure of speech. If anyone is waging a battle, it is you because there is hostility in every word you compose.
If she’s entitled to say that, I’m entitled to say she could have made a better point against homeschooling.
And that’s it. There doesn’t need to be a big argument, I certainly didn’t want one, and I don’t know how you think I’ve been indulged, when I would have preferred to be completely ignored with my opinion just left out there same as hers.
Look, if you’re telling me not to say something solely because some other hypothetical person would take issue, you’re just concern trolling. Either you yourself are bothered and complaining for yourself, in which case own up to it from the start, or it’s irrelevant.
Regardless, the main homeschooling group in America are Christians and related special interest groups, and I wasn’t talking in terms of harm to the children but harm to the overall community: the method of education is less efficient in homeschooling in terms of cost per kid, and the end result is some of them will make new bad decisions as voters to further harm the community. Those bad voters may have been personally helped a great deal by homeschooling, or all homeschooling may be child torture, but it’s irrelevant to the point it’s detrimental to the whole community.
Of course I was talking completely for myself. As a homeschooler, I was bothered as I felt there were better complaints one could make about it.
I don’t quite understand, actually, the leap you are making to suggest they would make poor voter decisions. Will you elaborate?
People raising their kids to avoid getting exposed to heretic viewpoints, like atheism or vaccination, are producing adults whose worldview has been carefully pruned to perpetuate those things. Whatever other problems schools have, it means you’re exposed to more ideas than just those of your family. Ideally, good and reasonable ideas should survive contact with other people’s bad ideas, while terrible ideas are more likely to be discarded, and at the very least, at least the resulting adults aren’t going to be offended by the very idea other people think differently.
What about all the people who were homeschooled for non-religious reasons? And by atheists?
It’s still less efficient than group schooling and has the problem of fewer viewpoints, it’s just less bad than learning Adam rode around on a vegetarian t-rex.
Why does efficiency matter in our context? People homeschooling aren’t using resources that others could use since they don’t get government money and they do pay the same taxes everyone else does. Homeschooling being less efficient than public school is as relevant as extracurricular music or sports activities being less efficient than ones run by public schools.
Also, if you’re talking about the extreme of Adam and the vegetarian T Rex (and that is extreme, even among Christian homeschoolers) you should be comparing it to the extreme of shitty public schools, like a significant percentage of students graduating unable to read fluently.
The fewer viewpoints thing just demonstrates you don’t actually know much about homeschooling. Or public schooling. Or the internet.
Why does efficiency matter in our context?
Because that’s what the paragraph was about.
People homeschooling aren’t using resources that others could use since they don’t get government money
They totally do! How much and why depends on your local area. Some states straight up treat them like private schools complete with the tax credits for them.
Plus massive incentive for homeschooling parents to vote against funding for public schools, etc. Maybe you live in the glorious utopia where people understand taxes have a purpose. Where I live, assholes keep voting for cuts.
And I realize this is sort of an alien point because our economy is so generally fucked we don’t understand that labor has value, but labor does have value and a single adult teaching a single child is a really terrible waste of that labor.
See, if public schools suck (they do!) and all the parents with money and time just opt out of that system, the public schools just decline faster leaving the kids who need help the most shit out of luck. I mean, there’s issues with private schools but at least those offer scholarships sometimes and understand the concept of one trained adult teaching many kids. You can hypothetically transition over to a private school only model and still have things function.
See, to bring it back to the reason I brought it up in the post, it’s really very rare that there are two equally good options. If there’s some reason it’s actually better to avoid public schools, then making it a “choice” that only some people can afford to take is just fucking over the rest of our society.
The fewer viewpoints thing just demonstrates you don’t actually know much about homeschooling.
Yeah it’s definitely not like we start bitching to each other as soon as the kids leave about how god, you always know the homeschool kids by their total inability to follow directions, notice other people exist or handle any sort of conflict.