Day 18: Wherein Joat demonstrates that silence is pyrite.
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And again, and again, and again…
That’s not a silhouette. That’s blinking translucency.
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I’d ask why he expects this to work, since talking generally makes the other end of the conversation harder to hear rather than easier, but we’re working by dream logic here, so…
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Judging by the naming conventi… Okay, I think you know the drill by now.
: …I am…
…all I am all I am.
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“Met” implies a first-time encounter. Is this a translation error, or something?
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…Creepy stalker?
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The next morning…
You keep using that term, which makes me wonder how boring your normal dreams must be.
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Whiscash: Yes, a human. As one might expect, the human that grabbed the tail was subject to a curse of a thousand years. However, just as the curse was cast, a Pokémon named Gardevoir shielded the human… And sacrificed herself to absorb the curse.
Cherithe: Why? Why would that Pokémon, Gardevoir, take the human’s place?
Whiscash: To Gardevoir, that human was her partner. There exist strong bonds between humans and Pokémon.
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If I were in that situation, if I figured the dreams were in any way prophetic (and they are way too coherent to not be), I would not be using the term “maybe.” I mean, the evidence looks decently clear, here (provided we do count the use of the term “met” as a translation error), and there aren’t really any other plausible explanations floating about.
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Yesterday, Cherithe walked off to the left, implying her home is that way. Did she really take that big of a detour on the way here?
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Why are you leaving all of my stuff completely unguarded, Kangaskhan?
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Zombie apocolypse, perhaps?
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Why is that a surprise? Caterpie is clearly an outdoorsy type. As are most Pokémon, I imagine.
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Caterpie, if you’re that scared of Gengar, why not just hear the story second-hand. Or… second… whatever those stubby things you have are called.
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For absolutely no explained reason.
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Huh. So the Xatu used to be human. Who knew?
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…Kiiiinda hard to miss.
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True, but he hasn’t told a single lie thus far. And honestly, I think this is important stuff to know, even if expressed for the wrong reason, in this case.
Honestly, if we’d told everyone the tale like we probably should have done, we probably could have nipped this in the bud.
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It’s only the destruction of the world, after all!
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In Teen Titans, I remember an episode where Raven and Terra were arguing about whether or not to destroy a console. If memory serves, Terra wanted to destroy it, thinking that doing so would stop the process of a bad thing happening. Raven wanted not to destroy it, since they might be destroying their only way to stop the process.
Now, I was with Terra on that one, since a console you don’t know how to use is pretty much useless anyway, but the point is, if they get rid of that former human and it turns out they’re the only one who can stop it, the world’s kinda screwed.
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…
Ah yes, I guess I can understand why you would think I was the coward who did that.
For that matter, didn’t these incidents start before my arrival? I mean, I don’t think it was ever stated, but it was at the very least strongly implied.
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Ah, yes, time to clear my name!
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…Oh, right, silent protagonist, crap…
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I just missed getting a screenshot of it, but Lombre attacked with a fierce punch which, well, missed. And then the other Pokémon close in for the attack, taking their sweet time with actually attacking.
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I think it’s rather clear. I mean, what did you expect them to do, if their plan was to get rid of the human in question? Give him the keys to a shiny new spaceship and kindly tell him to go to Mars?
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“Us”?
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Ugh… Okay, no jokes about this one. Instead, a bit of a rant.
Remember what I said at the beginning, about the game not knowing what they want to do with the protagonist? There’s a reason why the protagonist in the main series games is silent. It’s so they don’t say something the player would not say, or in a way the player would not say it, and such is a good way to go about things, otherwise this happens.
This game, by the quiz at the beginning, clearly wants me to be able to put myself into the role of this character, but even if I were 100% convinced that I was guilty of dooming the entire planet, I would never say either of those things. Not even close. Nowadays, I would just come right out and state my suspicions. When I was 10, I’m not sure what I would have done, but unless I planned to heroically sacrifice my life to potentially save the world, I’m pretty sure I would not want to go it alone. Even way back then, I understood the concept of safety in numbers.
With the thing before, with the character not speaking, I could at least see myself locking up under such a situation or something like that, but with this…
*sigh* Well, I guess I’ll choose the first option.
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The script.
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Say what you will about how I wouldn’t say that, but honestly, I think that it’s a logical thing to do. It’s kind of hard to maintain a rescue team when you are a wanted fugitive.
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You mean other than the story yesterday and me being nearly beaten by a mob just now?
I mean, for crying out loud, say what you will about whether I should be the leader of a rescue team, but my Run Away ability was pretty darn vital back there…
Well, that, or I could have pointed out that we recently took down Zapdos. I mean, would you want to mess with that team?
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“And you were there, and you, and you…”
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Much as I appreciate the sentiment, were I in that position, I do not think that would be a very convincing argument.
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This is actually fairly dark. I mean, consider the target demographic. Sure, I was 25 at time of original writing, but the target demographic is about 10. And though they haven’t outright stated it, I kinda doubt they plan to simply make the former human faint.
In short, for most of the people playing this game at the time, the town has unanimously decided to murder a small child. Without conclusive proof, at that.
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It’s a good thing I’m pretty well-prepared for travel, considering that all of my supplies that aren’t already packed are, well, in town.
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Are you and the rest of the town set on this or not? I mean, I could understand if only this team are sparing them for now, delaying and only later going out to save face, but apparently all of the rescue teams agreed to this.
Either you are fully certain that Joat is the cause of all this, in which case you are endangering the entire world (at which point Joat would die along with the rest of the world, for that matter), or you aren’t and therefore shouldn’t be attacking Joat yet, instead perhaps imprisoning them and trying to figure out the truth while you have them in containment. Or, if you’re really desperate, kill Joat right now. Either way, you are either delayed in killing Joat, during which time the disasters are still going on, thus making this objectively worse than just killing him now, or you are letting him get away, but wasting a whole bunch of resources trying to find him again, making this objectively worse than doing nothing at all.
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So you’re reasonably certain that we’re innocent, and… Actually, I take it back. Even keeping up appearances isn’t an excuse. First off, unless you have an audience nearby, if you meet up with Team Zephyrai, you can simply “fail” to apprehend them, and secondly, if you’re reasonably certain I’m not guilty, why did you not speak up? And if you did, why didn’t they listen? Are they seriously taking the hearsay of a team called Team Meanies over the word of a well-respected gold-rank team whose leader is explicitly stated to be very knowledgeable? Wouldn’t that at least give the town pause for thought?
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In their own incredibly confusing and nonsensical way.
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If they’re only superficially going to give the player options, why not just have the character speak up without having the player select an option? I mean, these aren’t even really different flavors of affirmation. I could at least understand it if one of the options were something like “Alright… I’ll try my best.” At least then, you’re doing some role-playing, because one option sounds confident and the other sounds a bit more uncertain and scared. Which, let’s face it, would describe me through pretty much the entirety of this adventure.
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And also probably large sums of cash, because that’s generally how this sort of thing goes.