Right so, time to head down the spoink path.
Some old lady pounds my team because the people in this new area are on par with the boss battle a minute ago. So yeah, fail to catch anybody on the way down.
New team:
L26 Flare
L29 kirlia 
L26 magnemite
L30 loudred 
L21 sandshrew
L20 numel 
At the pokemon center, an old guy says that he’s disappointed to find the springs are only for pokemon. This makes little sense given there’s a lady selling me milk in front saying it’s nice to drink before using the springs and I can walk in and splash about.
On to the gym, it’s nicely puzzly and makes use of the same water effect as the main hot spring. Plus, kids hiding underwater to ambush you!
Shame the AI is still so insanely stupid. A meditite uses fire punch on Flare, of all things.
Ah, and now my kirlia is evolving.
Gardevoir has the ability to read the future. If it senses impending danger to its Trainer, this Pokémon is said to unleash its psychokinetic energy at full power.
Flare does well up to the L26 kecleon, who is a damage sponge.
And now my sandshew’s evolving too.
Sandslash’s body is covered by tough spikes, which are hardened sections of its hide. Once a year, the old spikes fall out, to be replaced with new spikes that grow out from beneath the old ones.
Running low on pokemon to raise already…I’ve added in a swablu and an oddish.
Well, let’s see if Flare can handle this.
Welcome! screams Flannery in a mega spikybox. No, wait. I mean… Puny Trainer, you’ve done well to make it this far! Let’s see. I’m, uh, honored to be serving as the Gym Leader of… No, I mean.. I’m Flannery, and I’m in charge here!
Well this sure gives a horrible, horrible context to all that other NPC dialogue about how great Flannery is.
In Lucki, one of the things going on in the background is that Flannery one of the major players in Team Magma. That’s why Magma HQ is in her backyard without her ever doing anything about it, and her whole hot springs thing is a great way to train to go up against Aqua’s trainers. I like that idea of Flannery a lot better.
Uh… You’d better not underestimate me just ’cause I’ve only been Leader a short time! With the skills inherited from my grandfather, I’m gonna, uh, demonstrate the hot moves we’ve honed in this land!
Bear in mind there’s only three and a half female gym leaders, compared to four and a half men. The first runs the weakest gym and she was initially presented like an elementary school teacher and is now in a sexy schoolgirl outfit. Flannery is the second and her story is about being descended from some impressive guy and being super insecure. Winona ends up being the only full gym leader who manages to be both decent and female. And on top of that, this is hardly the first generation a female gym leader has been portrayed poorly.
Haiyaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
She leads with a L26 slugma. It wastes its turn on a light screen. Flannery tries healing it, but it’s futile. That’s followed by a L26 numel, who goes down to a critical hit bite. Its death catapults Flare up to L28, still unscratched. Next is a L28 torkoal, who’s somewhat intimidating, especially when Flare’s bite does almost no damage, but then it uses Sunny Day and seriously, this is a flareon you can’t use fire moves, stupid. It then batters Flare to death with body slam, and I finish up with my loudred – in the end, sunny day runs out and the torkoal never even uses a fire move.
I…I’ve only recently become a Gym Leader. I guess I was trying too hard to be someone I’m not. When I don’t act like myself, no wonder Pokemon that battle at my side get confused. Thank you for teaching me that. You deserve this.
So let’s talk about when it’s acceptable for a gym leader to have this whole little story bit about how they’re not at their best. When the battle is not a gym battle. That’s it. The only time. The whole idea of gym battles is that they’re against really tough trainers. If my opponent ends by saying I’ve shown them how to not suck and now they’ll be awesome, then no, I don’t deserve a badge.
Your power reminds me of someone… Oh! I know! You battle like Norman, the Gym Leader of Petalburg.
In conclusion, can anyone think of a genderflipped version of this taking place any time in the series?
…Well, at least the gym was gorgeous. I especially like how Flannery’s hair matched the spiky leaves.
And Brendan comes running over when I leave.
Lucki, hey! So you were all right, huh? Oh, well, you know… The last time I saw you, you were mixed up with those “Team Whatsit” people… So I just wondered if you’d gotten back on the road after that.
Right. I would like to thank you for not showing up during all that.
It was, like, I don’t know… I guess I was a bit…worried? What? You battled them AGAIN after that? And you even managed to beat them? You really are something else, Lucki… You and your Pokemon. Your team. And that…that sparkle there… Is that the Meteorite you got back from them? …Oh, right! I forgot to give you these before. And I get the goggles. Keep those with you if you’re planning on going into that desert near Route 111. There should be some Pokemon that only make their habitat in the desert, you know. You might check ’em out–if you’re up to it. And… Huh? You got the Lavaridge Badge! So you even beat Flannery, huh? Looks like you’ve been taking proper care of your Pokemon. Guess that means…that you’ll be headed to Petalburg City next, huh? To challenge your dad at his Gym? W-well, if you are… I just happened to be thinking of going to Petalburg myself, so…How about it? Wanna go back to Petalburg together?
…
So, May’s corresponding dialogue is:
Name! Wow, it’s a relief to see you in one piece! Oh, well, you know… The last time I saw you was right after battling those Team Whatsit people… So I was a bit worried, thinking about what might have happened to you after that, Name… …What? You battled them AGAIN after that? And you BEAT them! You really are something else, Name. I-I mean, you and your team are. I’m pretty impressed by you all! And that pretty stone that’s sparkling there… Is that the Meteorite you got back from them? Oh, that’s right! Here! Here! I’ve been thinking of giving these to you. If you put on those Go-Goggles, you’ll be all set heading into the desert on Route 111. …Oh! And it’s that–That’s Lavaridges Gym Badge! So you beat Flannery, too? I guess you really are training your Pokemon right… Next up will be challenging your dad, Norman, in Petalburg, right? I’m headed to Petalburg’s Gym next myself… Do you want to go back together? Back to Petalburg?
So very similar but Brendan continues to be into negging.
I tell Brendan no.
O-oh… Yeah, I get it… But, well, I’ll probably still be here in Lavaridge for a while. So if you decide to head for Petalburg, um, let me know.
Game, why are you trying to guilt me when you spring a teleport on me seconds after giving me an item to explore a new area?
Though come to think of it…given my problems with being overleveled, maybe I should head straight back and try to face him with my real team. I guess I’ll leave it up to you guys. Vote quick.
Straight back.
I know this is a kid’s game but I’m still waiting for you to reach a moment where there’s a real challenge.
Spoiler alert: There is no real challenge (except for trying to catch Groudon because the fucker knows rest), especially if you’re abusing the exp share like Farla is using. Elite Four might pose a challenge if Farla restrains herself from using Primal Groudon (who bytheway seriously breaks the game against the AI as it will try to use water attacks what will end up doing nothing)
I challenged myself by only using single-stage Pokémon from Hoenn. Luvdisc was my MVP. So much more fun with the challenge.
I know I do team adjustments to add challenge such as using only Pokemon that share the gym’s type (when available before the gym) – abuse the exp share to get them on par with gym levels quickly and fight fire with fire so to speak, then switch back to my traveling team between bosses. It tends to work out to give more of a challenge in most cases. Setting your own difficulty via team choices still isn’t quite a proper “challenge mode” though, and it shows how broken the exp. share can be.
I am becoming tempted to start a Dresden Files-style rewrite of the male/female rival dialogue but I’m not quite sure how far to exaggerate the differences to be funny.
Joining the votes to go straight to Norman, though I’m tempted to say to take the long way back and ignore the Brendan-porter out of spite.
That sounds like it might be worth doing, but I really like actually seeing how pokemon fight at various levels, so using already leveled pokemon has less appeal.
I used to do stuff like that back in the GSC days. Fun!
especially if you’re abusing the exp share like Farla is using.
I’m not, that’s why I’m juggling so many pokemon. I have my real pokemon lead and a bunch of filler pokemon can level from the exp share along the way. That way, my legitimate team only gets experience from what they kill.
I’m still convinced they make it easier each gen out of spite.
It really does feel that way, doesn’t it? Either spite or the belief the only way older players could be interesting in the games is if we want zero challenge.
Straight back. And keep your team item-free.
straight back!
My idea of Hoenn is a lot darker than yours. It involved kidnapping, blackmail, and frustrated Gym leaders whose hands are tied by the two gangs. There’s also a lot of punching and some death. – w-
Well, my idea of Hoenn ends with everyone dead, so…
Since when the hell is your rival supposed to be a love interest oh right opposite genders. God, but that is just…
In Lucki, one of the things going on in the background is that Flannery one of the major players in Team Magma.
Huh, I don’t think I caught on to that. It’s definitely a cool idea, though; makes a lot of sense.
fwiw I didn’t catch that either, but I’m bad at picking up Farla’s implications.
In this case it really just wasn’t clear. It was an idea I had but I didn’t want to make it too obvious at the time and then didn’t follow up on it.
*feels a bit better*
And yet this gives rise to a different question: how do you not get trapped in worldbuilding when writing? Indy’s only a handful of actual chapters long because I’m petrified that I’ll either forget to foreshadow something or mess up a characterization that needs to be a certain way for later events to make sense.
Ultimately I think it comes down to accepting that you’ll screw up and that no one else is paying attention so you can always go back and edit it away. Even people who pay attention to foreshadowing often only notice it on reread, so you have time to pull this off.
In Lucki’s case, I planned out the route, days, and important events, so I knew what needed to happen by the time I was done with each area. As long as I had the outline handy, I couldn’t miss any major point. And I didn’t get too into the deeper worldbuilding because Lucki would never engage with it, so I didn’t stress about if I was always consistent with the idle musings in my head.
It was never really explored. I should probably have put Flannery in the conflict at the end of the story.
I had the idea that there was all sorts of stuff going on outside Lucki’s view. She meets Keegan right before there, he gets to bypass all the traps and trainers because he’s “just there for some advice” then when Lucki gets to Flannery, Keegan’s all “okay we just finished talking kay bye call with any new advice though” and Flannery’s all distracted. Keegan also tells us that fire type trainers like himself don’t think much of Magma…at the same time he says there’s definitely no way Magma has a secret base nearby, nope, must be seeing things, no need to investigate further. I also liked the idea that actually all people with fire-based names were on the fire cult side – if not actually members then at least sympathizers. Magma is so off the wall it makes a degree of sense for this to be an old disagreement that’s suddenly gotten a lot more serious.