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Hyphen (Pokemon Emerald)

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May can't sleep. (Ch 15: May PoV.)
  • Apocrypha
    • Omake delivery, fresh from the SB thread!

    =====

    May couldn't sleep.

    Today had been, well, it hadn't been hectic, per se, but it had been a lot. These past few weeks had been so chock full of pure 'what-the-fuck' that her brain simply refused to wind down. Sleep eluded her like... like...

    Like a super-rare Pokemon, she finished lamely. She turned her head to the side, looking at her bedmate.

    Astra was sleeping soundly.

    Because of course she was. May thought sourly. The girl was an enigma. Apparently, she had traveled to Birch's from a "remote village" to get a pokemon. Some village that must have been. And May thought Littleroot was secluded. What kind of place didn't have running water, for crying out loud?

    Quietly, May crept closer. From this angle, she could see Astra's face somewhat better. For someone who grew up in what basically amounted to the wilderness, her face was extremely pale, almost like a ghost.

    Man, albinism must be a hell of a thing.

    She briefly entertained the thought of taking off those heavy robes, before immediately dismissing it. She probably wore it to protect her skin, right? Block the sun? Besides, Astra didn't deserve to have her trust stepped on like that.

    It had to be hot under all that black cloth, though. May supposed that was what the hat was for, to block the sun. And all that shiny, emerald hair...

    May paused. Green hair? Didn't Wally have...

    All of a sudden, memories of the past few days started flooding back, as if some dam had burst. Her mind started rapidly putting pieces together, faster than she could consciously keep up with. Tons of little details, tidbits that she hadn't even noticed at the time, began to paint a very unsavory picture.

    =====

    Wally came to a stop under the shade of a tree. "Sorry." he muttered breathily. " I, I have to, uh, catch my breath. Yeah, sorry. Just a moment." He coughed twice.

    May rolled her eyes internally. Did this kid really expect to be able to be a Pokémon Trainer if he had to stop every ten seconds? What was this, amateur hour? What was his deal?

    Putting on a concerned mien, she spoke gently. "Hey, come on. You want to be a Pokemon Trainer, yeah?"

    "Y-, uh, yes? Yes."

    No conviction whatsoever. Honestly. "Then you gotta pull it together, guy!" she joked. "You can't let a little asthma or whatever get you down! Look, we're almost to the tall grass!"

    Wally's face grew pained. "I... you're right. Okay. I'll-I'll try harder."

    May let a grin mask her exasperation. "That's the spirit!"

    =====

    "I, I did it. I caught it! I caught my first Pokemon!" Wally exclaimed. He looked ecstatic.

    May frowned. "Are you, uh, are you sure? Poochyena tend to shed a lot. Won't it trigger your asthma, or something?"

    Wally didn't seem to hear her, too lost in his own world. He picked up his newly caught Poochyena, holding it close to him. He seemed completely fine.

    "Guess not." May muttered.

    Briefly, she could have sworn she saw a flickering red in his eyes and hair befo-
    =====

    May nodded. "Yep, that's him. You know, he got here ages ahead of me or my Mom? Enough time to set up the Gym and even appear on tv. So he's out here for like a month, and when I finally show up here two days ago, what does he do? He sends me out on goddamn babysitting duty!"

    "Babysitting duty…?" Astra asked. Her face had lost all trace of the excitement and wonder of trying sushi for the first time, taking on a much more apprehensive appearance.

    "Yeah. Some asthmatic kid named Wally; short, green hair, couldn't walk for five minutes without coughing or choking on air." Astra's face fell, growing anxious. "He wanted a pokemon and for some reason decided to bug Dad about it ten seconds after I walk inside." It fell further still, before growing a pained smile. "So he just decides to foist the kid off on me, tells me to go show him how to catch a pokemon. It's like-" May clutched at thin air in front of her, before gesticulating wildly, "What the fuck, right? I just got here and you're telling me to leave? Why!?"

    Brendan nodded, frowning. "That does seem pretty callous. What happened next?"

    Astra no longer looked like she wanted to hear the rest of the story.

    =====

    "What's biking?"

    May's thoughts came to a jumbled halt. Without thinking, she looked at Brendan, seeking an explanation.

    He was just as lost as she was.

    "You don't know what a bike is, Astra?" Brendan ventured.

    Unbelievable. "For real? I don't- how!?" May threw up her arms, exasperated. "This is ridiculous!"

    Astra hung her head, looking terribly embarrassed.

    "Sorry." she mumbled.

    May still couldn't believe it. How could someone never have heard of a bicycle? Just what sort of hole in the ground did Astra crawl out of?
    =====

    "You throw a ball now, right? I… I'll do my best!" the boy said, taking aim with another sphere of red and white.

    'Jeez, just how green is this kid?' May wondered to herself. 'Metaphorically speaking, of course.'

    Did he even go to a trainer's school?

    "Wait, it's not quite-" May said, but the ball had already left his hand.

    His throw was pathetic. Telegraphed, slow, off-target. May wanted so badly to believe he had missed on purpose. It was quite obvious that he had never even practiced throwing, let alone used a Poke ball before. The pale, green-haired Pokémon saw the small ball coming, and swiftly dodged with a panicked "Ralts!"

    "I missed? Oh no, that was my only ball!" He muttered, sounding wooden with what seemed to be shock.

    'No shit, Sherlock,' May wanted to shout, but she held her tongue. Why was he acting like it was such a big surprise? Her dad had only given him one, cheapskate that he was.

    Honestly, what kind of aspiring Trainer doesn't practice throwing? It was like he'd never known that Poke balls were a thing until today. Had he been living under a rock or something?

    =====

    How? How could she not have seen the parallels? How could she have been so dense? It was so obvious in hinddsight, but she still didn't want to believe it. Wally, Astra, that weird Pokémon Ralts, albini-

    Wally took all his rests under shady trees! Astra didn't give any verbal commands during her battles with her and Brendan! It all made sense! And when she told Astra the st-

    May let out a pained wail. "Oh my birds I am a horrible person how could I what was I thinking." she muttered, disbelieving. 'How did I not pick up on- no, no, I do not need to deal with this, not when I need sleep this badly. I will deal with this whole clusterfucktomorrow morning.

    'Repress, repress,'     she repeated to herself. 'Repressss...'

    May quietly backed away from the sleeping Ral- Astra, and closed her eyes, fiercely counting Mareep jumping over Pokémon Tower.

    She didn't sleep that night.
     
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  • Apocrypha
    • Darchias said:
    Explosion has significantly more power.
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    Eh, arguable. Explosion has 250 base power, whereas Self-Destruct has 200. If you listed all pairs of moves that were absolutely identical to each other outside of base power and/or PP, I believe that the gap in base power between Self-Destruct and Explosion would be the smallest percentage-wise, clocking in at only a 25% increase in power.

    Compare that to the difference between, say, Vine Whip and Power Whip. Vine Whip has a base power of 35 before Gen VI, whereas Power Whip clocks in at 120. That's more than a 240% increase in power.
     
    Nice update. Astra continues to show her naïve cuteness providing good humor.

    I love the tension caused by protagonists keeping secrets and then trying to tiptoe around and cover their tracks, but completely lothe 'and then the protagonist tells X person or group everything' scenes, removing one of the main sources of conflict, tension, and humor from a story just to make the reveal end up being inconsequential as everyone accepts it and returns to normal making it pointless. I have dropped hundreds of stories for that and hope this one doesn't go that route.

    Some minor style advice:
    Use active voice over passive voice when you can, e.g. "saw" instead of "could see" or "the building stood" instead of "a building was standing"
    Avoid using descriptors instead of names or pronouns. Instead of "the psychic" it's usually better to call her "Astra" or "she" unless her being psychic is specifically relevant to the scene in the context of where it is used.

    Overall, while the chapter didn't do much to advance the plot, it did further characterize and build relationships and had a nice slice of life to feel to it.
     
    Crimson Bolt said:
    I love the tension caused by protagonists keeping secrets and then trying to tiptoe around and cover their tracks, but completely lothe 'and then the protagonist tells X person or group everything' scenes, removing one of the main sources of conflict, tension, and humor from a story just to make the reveal end up being inconsequential as everyone accepts it and returns to normal making it pointless. I have dropped hundreds of stories for that and hope this one doesn't go that route.
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    It's a difficult balancing act, because the flip side, where the protagonist goes through increasingly contrived circumstances to hide their secret, and the people around him/her have to pick up increasingly large idiot balls to not put the evidence together, is awful too. Anime, especially superhero / magical girl anime, is filled with this.

    As I see it, Astra's secret is going to have to come out at some point, at least to a few people or even just one, because she's just making too many mistakes, and being too conspicuous, for May and Brendan not to notice something's up and start snooping in that incautious way that children do. I think it would actually be the most interesting for the story for there to be different stages, with the story progressing from one person finding out and talking to Astra about it, someone else finding out secretly and trying to keep the whole thing hidden, not knowing that someone else already knows, etc.
     
    Unilateral said:
    Eh, arguable. Explosion has 250 base power, whereas Self-Destruct has 200. If you listed all pairs of moves that were absolutely identical to each other outside of base power and/or PP, I believe that the gap in base power between Self-Destruct and Explosion would be the smallest percentage-wise, clocking in at only a 25% increase in power.

    Compare that to the difference between, say, Vine Whip and Power Whip. Vine Whip has a base power of 35 before Gen VI, whereas Power Whip clocks in at 120. That's more than a 240% increase in power.
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    While technically a 40% difference in power is 'significant', it's worth mentioning that in the generation the moves were invented (Gen I) they had 130 and 170 power, only a 30ish percent difference. They were different because they wanted the exploding Pokémon to get access to the move relatively early, but didn't want it to be too overpowered. So they nerfed Self Destruct's power and made a higher level version so it was worth using.
     
    Unilateral said:
    Today had been, well, it hadn't been hectic, per se, but it had been a lot. These past few weeks had been so chock full of pure 'what-the-fuck' that her brain simply refused to wind down. Sleep eluded her like... like...

    Like a super-rare Pokemon, she finished lamely.
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    Which is to say, you could probably find it in your bed.

    Astra really needs a t-shirt with "Why yes, I have been living under a rock my whole life, why?" on it to keep reminding May to adjust her expectations.

    She also needs an inverse scenario where she is surprised at their lack of wilderness survival knowledge, and tells them that they'd know this stuff if they'd been living under a rock their whole lives.
     
    Crimson Bolt said:
    I love the tension caused by protagonists keeping secrets and then trying to tiptoe around and cover their tracks, but completely lothe 'and then the protagonist tells X person or group everything' scenes, removing one of the main sources of conflict, tension, and humor from a story just to make the reveal end up being inconsequential as everyone accepts it and returns to normal making it pointless. I have dropped hundreds of stories for that and hope this one doesn't go that route.
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    TheEyes said:
    It's a difficult balancing act, because the flip side, where the protagonist goes through increasingly contrived circumstances to hide their secret, and the people around him/her have to pick up increasingly large idiot balls to not put the evidence together, is awful too. Anime, especially superhero / magical girl anime, is filled with this.

    As I see it, Astra's secret is going to have to come out at some point, at least to a few people or even just one, because she's just making too many mistakes, and being too conspicuous, for May and Brendan not to notice something's up and start snooping in that incautious way that children do. I think it would actually be the most interesting for the story for there to be different stages, with the story progressing from one person finding out and talking to Astra about it, someone else finding out secretly and trying to keep the whole thing hidden, not knowing that someone else already knows, etc.
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    I seriosuly appreciate your comments and concerns.

    I do know exactly where I want the first 'reveal' to happen (And if I say so, my self hyped mental image of it is *excellent*), but that unfortunetly neccessitates that said reveal can't happen prior to that point.

    That said, I do hear your concerns, and I will do my best to have May be Appropriately Suspicious without breaking SoD. Whether I succeed will likely be subjective to the reader.

    Also any explanations will be at the worst partially written out, because retellings and reactions are also my favorite parts and I would rather shoot myself than half assedly summarize something interesting.
     
    Last edited:
    Dermonster said:
    I have never eaten sushi in my life.
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    I was like that, too, until I got talked into it on some party. It was better than I expected.

    Sinsystems said:
    Oh and I look forward to the inevitable future point where Astra's secret is revealed to May and Brendan.
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    cheesyme said:
    so much this, I'm curious how it'll play out.
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    "... That's because I'm actually a pokemon".

    *beat*

    "Aren't you guys shocked?"

    "I was, when I first figured it out".
     
    Astra's wearing what may considers to be a dirty robe and she let it under the covers with her? That seems... kind-of gross, from May's perspective. Why not tell her to change into a clean bathrobe, assuming the hotel offers them, or something? At the very least, I'd expect her to grumble about it a bit.

    Also, two corrections:

    Dermonster said:
    Brendan looked wary. "How much did it all cost?"

    May burst into laughter. "Did you seriously order without looking at the price? What the hell, man? Ahh, not more than a hundred by my count."
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    If that's in yen, which I'm pretty sure the pokemon games are, that's $.94 usd. Far from being expensive, that's suspiciously cheap. Good sushi can go for $20-$50, or ¥2,125-¥5,313.
    Dermonster said:
    know was marked quite heavily
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    Nob.
     
    Last edited:
    TheEyes said:
    Prices are all over the place in the Pokemon universe. I mean, by that logic a Pokeball, a bit of technology that can digitize and store matter, is only $2.
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    Which, given how many the average trainer lis expected to go through makes sense.

    For the most part prices seem to be about what you would expect ignoring a few outlets and the fact that their tech is generally better than ours.
     
    I know absolutely nothing about money and the value of items and even less so with fake money in a game; even I have limits to how obsessively I research anything I write.

    (I had to look up what crab meat tastes like so I didn't have to *totally* make shit up.)

    Let us all come together and quietly sweep any mention of economics under a rug of inconsistency and pretend it makes sense. I will adjust the price of the sushi in any case.

    As to the dirty robe... well you got me there, it is a bit weird. Egg on my face, I guess. I'll take a look to see if i can change anything, but no promises.
     
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    Dermonster said:
    I know absolutely nothing about money and the value of items and even less so with fake money in a game; even I have limits to how obsessively I research anything I write.

    (I had to look up what crab meat tastes like so I didn't have to *totally* make shit up.)

    Let us all come together and quietly sweep any mention of economics under a rug of inconsistency and pretend it makes sense. I will adjust the price of the sushi in any case.

    As to the dirty robe... well you got me there, it is a bit weird. Egg on my face, I guess. I'll take a look to see if i can change anything, but no promises.
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    Leave it in and use it as one of the tells that makes May suspicious.
     
    Dermonster said:
    As to the dirty robe... well you got me there, it is a bit weird. Egg on my face, I guess. I'll take a look to see if i can change anything, but no promises.
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    Depending on how expensive the room is, the bathroom could have a small washing machine/dryer stack installed. That kind of thing is seen more often in the smaller apartments you see in dense Asian cities; in fact they might be more popular in the Pokemon universe, where young trainers on journeys need to travel light and not carry a full load's worth of laundry around. It would just take a bit of extra explanation on May's part.
     
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    Dermonster said:
    Let us all come together and quietly sweep any mention of economics under a rug of inconsistency and pretend it makes sense. I will adjust the price of the sushi in any case.
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    I just looked it up, pokemon money is basically yen (to the point where it's actually called yen in the Japanese releases). That means, if you're thinking of a dollar value, you should move the decimal place to spaces to the right, as a general rule of thumb, to get the yen/pokemon value.
     
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