On The First Day of Failmas...

Hey, guess who? Welcome to our December holiday celebrations.

This was supposed to be an advent calendar type thing, but Ebony and I were busy and forgot the date. Whoops! Instead, have the 12 Days of Failmas. Which won't be exactly 12 days but whatever, it sounds better that way.

Some of these articles will be strictly constructive and some will be our usual blend of critique and douchebaggery. Today's topic?

Ryuu and Pokemon.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

I'll wait for you to finish freaking out.

(Christ, he looks like he's in horrible pain. I kinda feel bad now.)

You're done? Awesome. So. Pokemon.

Like very nearly every other kid during the early 2000s, I grew up playing Pokemon games, trading Pokemon cards and watching the Pokemon anime. If you hadn't heard of Pokemon, you were living under a fuckin' rock.

The three non-Zelda fandoms I put the most time and energy into are Dragonball/Z, Harry Potter and Pokemon. So I'm clearly a huge Pokemon fan to this day.

Which means you can probably take an educated guess about how little I appreciate Ryuu running around, unzipping his fly and gleefully taking a leak on everything I know and love.

THAT'S RIGHT. I DON'T.

I figured this was as good a time as any to cover the fact that no, it's not just Zelda, Sonic and Megaman Ryuu's decided to ruin.

I'm going to assume you're all generally familiar with the premise of Pokemon and not explain it, as I don't think any of our readers have been leaving under a rock for the past decade-plus. I'm just going to jump right in here.

We're going to start with this:

Raichu looks stoned as fuck, by the way.

 Ryuu commissioned this from Niraven, as you can see from this first link.

This is apparently his "original" (for lack of a better term, as he's still ripped off heavily from Sora of Kingdom Hearts fame. He also happens to be, at least in part, another self-insert) manga character Orion as a Pokemon Trainer.

I don't know WHY he'd suddenly be a Pokemon Trainer, but whatever, I'll roll with it. And his team would apparently be a Bulbasaur, a Raichu and... 

... Oh god damn it, Ryuu.

That's a Shiny Mewtwo. Because randomly having one of the strongest legendaries in the middle of a team of weak Pokemon wasn't enough, I guess.

I'm guessing that you, dear reader are at least loosely familiar with the Pokemon series. But Shiny Pokemon aren't quite as universally known, so have an explanation.

Shiny Pokemon are a randomly occurring color variant of a Pokemon. Most are found in the wild but it's possible you could get one as your starter Pokemon, from an egg or through other in-game events. There have also been several shiny event Pokemon distributed by Nintendo.

If you feel like cheating, GameSharks and Action Replays make it fairly easy to acquire Shinies, but it's pretty easy to tell you cheated if you trade one. Also, you take the risk, however slight, of borking your game.

Anyway, the alternate colorations have existed since the second generation of games, and range from slightly different shades of color (See: Skitty, which is a slightly darker shade of its usual coloring) to completely mind-blowing (See: Sableye, which goes from dark purple to gold). But they all have one thing in common. Because with very few exceptions,

SHINY POKEMON ARE EXTREMELY EXTREMELY RARE.

According to Bulbapedia, the odds of finding one are 1/8192. There are ways to up the chances of getting one but at least one requires having already caught a Shiny. Which brings us back to the 1/8192 odds. If you'd like that put in practical terms:

I have put, on average, 150 hours into every main series Pokemon game. There's a few on the upper end where I've put 250-300 hours in. Out of all of these (Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, Silver, Crystal, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold, SoulSilver, Black, White, Black2, White2)? 

I have found ONE SHINY. I have been playing Pokemon SINCE I WAS EIGHT YEARS OLD. I AM THREE AND A HALF WEEKS SHY OF 23.

That Pokemon? Was a fuckin' Geodude, and I wasn't even able to CATCH IT before it decided to use Self-Destruct, leaving me with a lingering hatred for the species. Change-Or-Die is in the same boat, except hers was a Drowzee. And she caught the damn thing.

The point of rehashing childhood causes of hypertension?

The odds of you actually finding a Shiny starter Pokemon (without using breeding to up your odds), let alone a legendary are essentially diddly-shit.

I mean, yeah, it is possible without using an Action Replay but I don't want to know what the hell you'd have to go through.

Leaving that behind, Ryuu actually DOES have a Pokemon-based character, so hell if I understand why he turned Orion into a Pokemon trainer. For the record, I don't have an issue with revamping characters for different fandoms, but I do have an issue when you just drop a character into another fandom with no editing whatsoever and that's... Fairly clearly what happened here.

Anyway, as you can see here, he has a shitty ripoff of Ash already. I don't see why he needed to have a shitty ripoff of Ash and a shitty ripoff of Sora, but whatever, time to take the bio apart. All bold in the character sheet is added by me, and all typos were left untouched (no matter how much it made every vaguely anal-retentive tendency I have flip shit).

Name: Rocky Rhodes
Nick-Name: (none)
Gender: Male
Age: 13
Hight: 4'11"
Weight: 89 lbs.

Yes, that name is pretty horrendous, but Pokemon names generally have some godawful puns going on so that's... Actually passable considering the universe.

This is a shock, I know.

Secondly, height and weight. According to my research, the average thirteen year old boy is 5'1 3/4" inches tall and weighs 102 pounds. Rocky is slightly smaller than average for his age and is definitely under the average weight. He's still in the "normal" range of height and weight but according to a handful of sources I looked at, he's really cutting it close. One of these sources said:

Boys' normal height can range from 4'11" at the 10th percentile to 5' 5 3/4" at the 90th percentile. The average weight for boys at that age is 102 pounds, with a range from 80 pounds at the 10th percentile to 135 pounds at the 90th percentile.

According to the CDC, then, he's in the clear but barely.

But other sources, including the BMI (and yes, I know it's full of shit but still) say he's underweight. After comparing and contrasting several sources, I'd say it averages out to "he's really, really toeing the line and that Ryuu needs to learn how human bodies work when deciding heights and weights."

And that he also needs to learn to spell height, but I digress. Moving on.

Physical Description (body): Rocky is an average young boy. He's thin and has long limbs compared to his body. His eyes are emerald green and his hair is a reddish-brown.

No, he's not average, he's on the verge of being worryingly underweight.

Also, due to that physical description, I now have a mental image of a lima bean with flamingo legs and stick-thin gorilla arms that pretty much refuses to fuck off. This is revenge for the Ryo-Muk hybrid earlier, isn't it?

Stupid karma.

Physical Description (Apparel): Very simple. Normal blue jeans, a dark green T-shirt with a white vest. The vest has dark blue trim and a dark blue symbol of a Pokeball (Like seen on SSBM) on the back. He wears black finger-less gloves on his hands and red shoes that have a thunderbolt design on the sides.

One, wow. If it's very simple, it'd just be jeans, a shirt and shoes for most people. Two, I'm fairly sure you ripped those shoes from Koushiro/Izzy from Digimon.

And three, that outfit clashes all over the place. It's like a kindergartener threw up after eating a box of crayons, man oh man.

Three, you know what I'm imagining?

Full disclosure: I had CWKTok on repeat for an age while writing this.

Yeah. Chris Chan is not a pretty mental image. Though the comparison is eerily appropriate on several levels, but I digress.

Looks most Like: A mix between Ricky and Ash (Pokemon)
Image: (none)

I asked Rinku, "Who the fuck is Ricky?", because while the Pokemon anime does have a filler character by that name, the dude didn't exist till 2012. So it's clearly not Ricky. Rinku pointed out after a moment of mutual "what the fuck is he going on about now" that maybe Ryuu meant RITCHIE.

FUCK. LEARN TO SPELL, JACKHOLE.  Also, you should still explain who the hell Ritchie is if you're going to rip him off because I spent a solid five minutes trying to figure out how the hell this tied into the Oracle of Ages/Oracle of Seasons kangaroo.

If you see any similarities between Ricky and the Ash ripoff described in this article, please
consult your optometrist as soon as humanly possible

And now we get to personality. Which I'm guessing he actually doesn't have, despite what Ryuu's going to say:

Personality: He's a happy young teen who's got high hopes for the future. When he gets excited, he gets jittery, mainly because he seems to be storing a lot of energy in his body. He's a good runner due to this as well.

Oh look, I was right.

Also, Ryuu, you really need to learn what words mean before you use them, buddy. Jittery usually means you're having some seriously jerky movements. Or that you're really uneasy and/or nervous.

Also, most of the time? The jitters are caused by getting a bit too far into the cappuccino. As I found out to my detriment my freshman year, when they happen? Odds of you deciding to randomly run a fucking marathon are pretty low. As are the odds of finishing a ten page Psych 101 paper.

Power(s): Nothing
Strengths: Good stratagist. He's in the know of what's good against what in a match.
Weaknesses: Once he knows a stratagy that works, he'll use it more than once, letting his oppenent learn his battle plans...

So, he's a shitty strategist. A good strategist not only keeps track of the seventeen types, their strengths, and their weaknesses, but each Pokemon's typing, held items, how to use held items, when to use other items, etc., etc. And they constantly change their strategies. They don't just do the same thing over and over.

History: Rocky was a boy who always loved adventure, even in his own backyard. He was prone to get on his bike and go places that he'd eventually get lost in. Normally he was alone, so he had to rely on people around to help him get back home - or his mom if she came for him. Often he was in the woods, spying on curious animals he's always dreamed of being close to - Pokemon.

Right, gotta intervene here. HIS MOMMY HAD TO GO GET A THIRTEEN YEAR OLD. REALLY? How Humans Don't Work: Part WHAT THE FUCK NUMBER ARE WE ON ANYMORE. Also, it's repeatedly implied Pokemon have intelligence equal to or greater than most humans. I don't think calling them "animals" is smart.

After his 13th birthday, Rocky had firmly made up his mind and set off to become a Pokemon master. If this could not be done, he'd at least want to be a local champion. If even that couldn't be obtained, he'd set of to see a Pokemon that no other had. He had high hopes. High hopes, he felt, weren't so far from reach. Because he lived in Pallet Town, he simply walked to Professor Oak's lab to discuss his self-proclaimed mission. The Prof. didn't have much confidence in Rocky, knowing that he'd eventually call home wanting to come back within a day or so. However, he did bring a rare sight to Rocky's eyes - his starter Pokemon, a Level 5 Magtail. Rocky left for Veridian City after saying goodbye to his parents. Surprisingly enough for Prof. Oak, it wasn't until Rocky reached Saffron City did he recieve a direct call from Rocky saying that his Magtail was now Level 32!

Several things wrong here.

 
1. Rocky sounds like an arrogant, bossy, mommy-coddled dickhead.
 
2. I can't see Professor Oak giving the brat one of his Pokemon if he thought the kid would fuck off.

3. Oak thought highly enough of a few ten year olds to give them Pokemon and Pokedexes. But on the other hand, Red, Blue and Leaf were never crybabies who needed to be bailed out by Mommy, so maybe this is explainable.
 
4. MAGTAIL. I'm guessing you guys know exactly what the fuck that is, but just in case you can't quite put the name to the face:

Totally not a direct rip from The Wind Waker at ALL.

And as if that wasn't enough, it evolves into GOHMA? As it's supposedly a Fire/bug type, I'm guessing it's the TWW Gohma.

I'm all for Fakemon but this is fucking ridiculous.

And as I don't see any intermediate form listed, I'm operating under the assumption that Ryuu and Ryuu alone gets a newly-discovered starter that goes from weak to MULCHES EVERYTHING without a single step in between.

Bullshit! That's not how this crap works.

Extra: His starter pokemon was one of a new species, being a Magtail. Magtail is a Bug/Fire type pokemon that has long pinchers and hard armor. It has a single eye and weilds lots of little legs. Its most powerful move (before it evolves into Gohma) is FlameThrower. Rocky has nick-named his Magtail "Torch". Torch has been Rocky's most loyal and prized Pokemon ever since their first meeting.

AAARGH.

First off, what kind of a dumb name is Torch? And you do realize in certain parts of the world you more or less named the goddamn thing "flashlight", right?

Also, what the fuck, why is an unevolved Pokemon learning a move like Flamethrower? This thing is broken as all fuck.

And furthermore, BEFRIENDING YOUR POKEMON TAKES TIME.

IT IS NOT A FAST PROCESS AND IF YOU THINK IT IS YOU HAVE NEVER PLAYED A GAME PAST GENERATION I.

I can never stress this enough: Ryuu, you are a tool. That horrendously photoshopped Muk I have up there (ears and hair were "inspired by" Ryuu's sketch "Portrait - Ryo", by the way) is a better attempt at a Fakemon than this shit.

Of course, this isn't all we've got on him for December. Oh no. Not by a long shot.

What's next? Well, you'll just have to come back and check!