The Red Card Trainer

I'm on my way towards my first Grand Trial.  This will be my first major certification.  With the Verdant Cave Challenge completed, I will be allowed to battle the Melemele Island Kahuna, Kahuna Hala.  This is the very same person who gave me my Popplio at the start of the adventure.  Apparently he uses Fighting Pokemon: I've already started considering the team that I will be bringing into battle with him.

I couldn't get very far down the Seaward Cave path (it was full of Zubat and Diglett anyways), so I resigned myself to recovering Nebby as I was originally asked to do about two thousand hours of playtime ago.  Along the way, I caught another new favorite pokemon of mine, Crabrawler.
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I knew from the first time I saw him that this pokemon would make my short list of new "bests".  It's obviously based on the coconut crab--one of the largest currently extant terrestrial arthropods.

As a matter of fact, I just looked it up: it is the largest.

This is a creature known for its huge size and tough shell; it lives its entire life on land.  Indeed, it would be at risk of drowning if it were ever completely immersed in sea water.  While the creature varies in colour and size, it is often identified by its deep hues of blue and purple.  It's easily one of my favorite animals.  Well, one of my favorites that isn't a bird...because I have a weird thing for birds.

Crabrawler is a pure Fighting-type pokemon.  I'm glad that it isn't Fighting/Water.  I can already hear the legions of kids that are right now encountering this pokemon and thinking "Hey it's a crab, why isn't it a water pokemon?"

Hopefully (and this is a stretch) these same kids will look up this critter and learn a little something along the way.  And then they all become Biologists and grow up supporting the sciences.

Sorry, lost my train of thought.  At any rate, I let Rattata retire to that great dusty box slot in the sky in order to welcome my new friend.
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On my way back to the Kahuna, I fought my rival, Hau.  This time he had Pikachu and Litten.  After the match, I allowed Rai Rai to evolve into Pikachu and Pip Pip into Trumbeak.  I really like Trumbeak.  Yes, the design is cute, but the real reason I like it is because it does this silly cartoon thing in one of its idle animations wherein it purses its lips and makes like it's blowing a raspberry.  Fucking hilarious.

In Pokemon Sun and Moon, there are Ace Trainers scattered around the Alola Region who specialize in using specific items from the competitive scene.  Once I had defeated all the trainers on Route 3, the Ace Trainer there agreed to battle me.  He used Rockruff and Slowpoke and they each held an item called Red Card.  I have battled competitively in the recent past, but I haven't actually ever come across this item, so this was a pretty good learning experience for me.  Red Card apparently forces your opponent to switch out their pokemon for a random replacement if they target you with a super-effective move.

And I fell for it every clit-rubbing time.

I did manage to defeat the Ace Trainer in the end (his Slowpoke actually made this a fairly tough match with all the yawn-ing it was doing) and got, as my reward, my own Red Card.

File that under "save for later".

Current Squad:
Popplio/Pako Pako/lvl 16
Crabrawler/Ppunches/lvl 13
Trumbeak/Pip Pip/lvl 14
Pikachu/Rai Rai/lvl 14
Misdreavus/Missy/lvl 14
Growlithe/Growlie/lvl 14

On Rotation:
Oricorio/Ori-Chan/lvl 17
Grimer/Sludj/lvl 13
Slowpoke/Pokey/lvl 14
Yungoos/Chompy/lvl 13

Pokedex: 40 caught

Why I Love Pokemon

...gonna have to table the Gen 2 vs. Gen 3 discussion for the time being.  This is for many reasons.

First of all, given recent developments in my home country of America we have to address the elephant in the room, or rather, the "ambulatory hate-filled cheese puff with bad hair" in the white house.  Yes, this is going to be one of those posts.

Even if we ignore all of his bigotry and racism, his disregard of policy and politics, even if we ignore his rejection of the ideals outlined at the Geneva Convention and basic human decency, future president Donald Trump (still makes me vomit a little) is, without hyperbole,  an enemy to every person in the world.  This is because he has promised to destroy it.

Donald Trump has pledged to dissolve the EPA, to prioritize coal, and to ignore the statements outlined in the Paris Agreement.  If the United States backs out of the Paris Agreement, global climate change is going to be accelerated (and if you don't believe it's real, go back to school, motherfucker).  He has mentioned fracking tycoon (an arguably less fun game than Rollercoaster Tycoon) Harold Hamm (fuck that guy) as a likely Minister of Energy.  He has brought up Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, Ben Carson (that creationist fuck) for his cabinet.  It's like he's actually assembling the Secret Society of Supervillians.

What does this have to do with my Pokemon blog?

It is my belief that you can't appreciate Pokemon without caring for the environment to some extent.  The reason I love to play Pokemon so much is to explore a world of such variety in terms of the lifeforms that exist.  When you hear about a new pokemon game, what gets you most excited?  For nine out of ten people, their answer is "all the interesting new pokemon".  There are countless hundreds of fan-made pokemon designs.  There are scores of fan-made pokemon hacks with their own world and creatures.

How could you not see the parallels to our own world, which is so wonderful and teeming with variety?

I love playing Pokemon because it helps me remember to appreciate real world animals and plants and fungi.  There are so many wonderfully weird and cute and vicious creatures and plants.  There is so much beauty to be found all around you.  Even plants as common as an oak tree are important to so many creatures.    Even creatures as creepy as a spider; I love them all.  There's something beautiful and ruthless to the creepy fuckers.

I try to impress upon my biology students that life is weird and a little gross, but always awesome.  The Horned Toad shoots blood out of its eyes to scare off predators.  Isn't that totally gross and kind of awesome?!  Male Platypus are venomous; it's so rare to have such a trait in a mammal!  Komodo Dragons exist!  Actual dragons, 9 foot long lizards.  How is that not the coolest god-damned thing?  There are gliding snakes, flying squirrels.  The Pangolin!  Do you like the pokemon "sandslash"?  Wish it was real?  Well it is...and it's almost extinct.

It's easy to forget that a world full of life and wonderful things exist, especially whilst we sit here in our comfortable rooms with a mug of coffee and a pumpkin-scented candle--or perhaps in some popular (but not too popular, amiright?) coffeehouse furiously blogging and tweeting glib sarcasms.  It's easy to forget how great the world is.

So when people tell me that this upcoming abortion of a presidency won't be that bad, I remember the ones that are really going to suffer: the animals and the plants and all the beauty of the world.

I hope you like your fucking tax breaks, you Philistines.