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#33. Cyrus is a Very Disturbed Individual




"Stay away from our headquarters!" she says. "Don't even bother" she says. Yeah ok.


Huh, what's that moon faced weirdo lookin' at?


Presumably they receive information from satellites.



It's me!


. . . the one from. . . Floaroma?


I'm not sure I fought one of you guys with a Clefairy.


OR any sort of foreigner.


. . . ok then!


AH!
Music: Looker's Theme


You are useful?!


Hit 'em in the backdoor, yeah that's a plan I could get behind. Subtlety, yeah.




This is gonna be interesting.


How dare you.


You really don't have to say that.


Man, I'm gonna!


Useless!


Music: Team Galactic Hideout



That's not Team Galactic's plan at all.


. . . oh DARNIT, LOOKER.




!


Easy peasy.


Choro Notes: Ice Shard is basically an ice-type Quick Attack. Useful for when you absolutely need the first strike!



On the contrary, I'm quite the coward!

same anymore."



That is entirely part of my MO.


So. . . do I railgun you? What's the protocol here?


Oh no, not warp panels.


"Also watch out, guy I work with has the head of a Dustox now. It's literally pantshittingly terrifying."


Choro Notes: Snatch is a cool move. If your target uses any sort of buff or healing move that turn, you'll steal it and use it yourself. Hilarious tactic against Vespiquen



So do they just issue you all the same five easily-beaten monsters or what?


Every time I kick a loser's head in, another loser gets crappy Pokéthings.



. . .


Choro Notes: Frustration is the counterpart to Return. Instead of how much a Pokémon enjoys your company, it's how much it hates you. It's understandably not very useful.


My nostrils are noticeably impeccable and my hands spotless, sir.



6 HP, CAN SHE DO IT?!



DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES?!

No because that shit was in the bag.



Just buy an island or an aircraft carrier for you goons or something, jeez.


Choro Notes: Dubious Disc The Dubious Disc is a trade evolution item for Porygon2. It's mostly a bad patch that corrupts it! The thought of what's on that disc is kind of terrifying.



A decent move, Sludge Bomb.



If only "Master Cyrus" knew how useless his "thugs" are.


Phbbt.


Phbbbbt.

Alright, so. I guess we're breaking in through the front anyway. Let's make a brief pitstop somewhere.


I can't believe they'll sell this to kids!





Music: Galactic Eterna Building



. . . You people just keep finding new ways to annoy the crap out of me.


I'm allowed here! Pay no attention to me!


Hey, yeah gonna beat this unsuspecting nerd.



That hardly seems fair.


ICY HELL AWAITS YOU.


I. That, that's not how it works, Porygon2. :I



Indubitably.







Well this is a whole new level of what?


Whoa! Hello! Look at all them bowls.


One of the idiots said something about—”


(Anime-san.)


(Not if you're pretty enough~)



(. . . )



(You idiots couldn't change a lightbulb.)


(Hoo-ray. You got a library card.)


(. . . okay, that one's still a sore point.)


(Power of. . . dreams.)





(This entire thing is stupid.)





We've met.


. . . 27?!



He seems to think that because we hate things that we're incomplete. He's a nutjob.


Oh lord.


This is all gonna fall on me, isn't it.


See if we can cut the snake off at the head.


. . .

through our hideout?"

Oooh that makes me feel giddy~






See I'm giddy because I'm basically just denying any sort of advancement to an entire group of morons.


Yeah it was full o—”


Wait. Wait, what?



!


I've. . . noticed, yes.


. . .




They're a constant reminder of failure, yes.


For an idiot.





Music: Cyrus Battle Theme



I'm ready for you this time!




WHAT IS THAT THING MADE OF?!



Oh that's trouble.





Survive that.


WHAT?!


Okay, that was cool.



Next.


Whoa. . .


This is gonna be cake.


Choro Notes: Night Shade
Night Shade is actually bad news for Moaniki, despite the fact he resists ghost. Why? Night Shade doesn't deal damage normally. It deals damage equal to the user's Level. Every time Cyrus's Honchkrow uses it he's dealing 46 damage, guaranteed. This is a problem when you consider Moaniki only has 111 HP.



Oh c'mon.



I'd say that you're ab—”


CRAP.


Hey yeah, I'm an idiot.




. . . that, that's trouble.



. . .


Sorry, Dom!


LET'S TRY AGAIN.


Here are those rocks you ordered!!!!


THE DON IS DEFEATED.


Not now, Moaniki we have important things to do.



You're not gonna pull some sort of "Oh I've been wrong this whole time" conversion, are you? Because that would be really super.


D:


You. You're not sane. D:



What?!



What the heck do you do? Leg wrestle Pokémon into serving you?







Ok. Did I just get involved with the insane plot of a mad man trying to create his own universe and rule it as some sort of self-styled god?





Oh jeez.


quote:

Some say the universe originated from a massive explosion. Similarly, Sinnoh is thought to have been formed by an explosion in ancient times.
Needless to say, the explosion came from the power of a Pokémon. The Pokémon must have been the mythical creature considered a deity by the ancients.
Our aim is not to capture the mythical Pokémon, but to obtain its power . . .

The mythical Pokémon. . .
According to myths, the Pokémon created Sinnoh with its power. However, capturing the Pokémon with a Poké Ball prevents it from using its full power. . .
But with the Red Chain, the Pokémon can be shackled, and its power can be used without restraint. . .

The Red Chain. . .
The Pokémon of the three lakes and Mt. Coronet are somehow connected. Capturing the Pokémon of the lakes will free the Pokémon of Mt. Coronet. From the Pokémon of the lakes, crystals can be extracted to create a Red Chain. Using that Red Chain, the mythical Pokémon can be summoned and shackled to do as we command. . .
Oh jeez, oh jeez, oh jeez.

Music: Deep Within the Hideout



. . . ok eew.


YOU'RE ALL IDIOTS.


Good place to make a super-powered mutant.


Dooming us all, plain and simple. Way to doom humanity and also I guess Pokémanity.


. . . IT ALWAYS LOOKS LIKE THAT.


Look your crazy boss already gave me that spiel.


BECAUSE HE'S NUTS.


Yeah, hey! He doesn't give a bidoof's butt about you guys!


No, Saturn. C'mon man, you're the "not-a-crazy-bitch" commander. Can we just NOT fight?


THIS IS WHY HE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT YOU.


THIS


IS NOT


THE TIME.


AHRAGHJHGJHAGJH.






Who the hell cares about you? You aren't even named after a planet. Not even a DWARF planet you're a dwarf planet's moon.

Also I hate you.



Hey yeah, thanks for the appreciation guys.



Did you happen to notice that the chain was large enough to shackle stupidly powerful beings of time and space? Because I've been in your headquarters for like an hour and figured out the entire plan!

Maaaaan. What would Crasher Wake do?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


Doug Dinsdale posted:

The statue text was such a hideous pain in the ass to coordinate.
Write it, edit out chunks, put in the appropriate number of spaces manually, threaten editors, checkers, and other downstream with horrible disfigurement if they messed with that text . . .

GetWellGamers posted:

Because you needed the blue-colored text to appear just so, or what? I'm kind of missing something here, I guess . . .

Doug Dinsdale posted:

Because I had to make sure the blue chunks fit in precisely with what appeared on the statues themselves. I counted the number of letters in the complete statements (with both blue and black text), and then stripped out the blue text from the statue text, adding in the same number of spaces as the missing letters.

It's stupidly anal and not anything most people would notice or care about, but I did it for my own bloody-minded satisfaction. If I didn't do it, it would bug me even now.

Doug Dinsdale posted:

What makes Cyrus even more incoherent is the fact that the "E10" rating meant excising of anything remotely related to God and how he's going to be the supreme being, etc. The ridiculous sermonizing and dodgy genetics are just icing.

I remember bouncing my forehead off the keyboard fairly repeatedly when confronted with the original Japanese text (which was sort of my fault because I complained to the script writer that the motives of Cyrus were unclear in Diamond & Pearl, and that the underlings had even less motivation to follow his ravings. That brought on more appearances of Cyrus and the rally scene with Looker in Plat.).

Doug Dinsdale posted:

Well, the rally scene, I think Cyrus promised them a new world that's perfect for him and followers. So the way I figured it is that Cyrus is a messiah figure like der Fuhrer who promised a 1,000-year Reich. (And thus the Nuremberg Rally-like event.)

In a way, the motivation isn't all that different from the delusional eco-terrorists of Gen 3. Although those people at least were altruistic enough--they only wanted what's best for the world (although there were dingbats at the grunt-level who were not much more than thugs).

The Rockets were so much easier to deal with, really. They were just a criminal syndicate of the garden variety.

Momomo posted:

Plat's storyline additions feel more like they were written in after they finished D/P, rather that just writing the full thing, and then holding back on stuff for the first two versions. Is there any truth to this?

Doug Dinsdale posted:

You're absolutely right.
Plat was localized long after Diamond & Pearl, just like Emerald after Ruby & Sapphire, Crystal after G&S, and Yellow after Red & Blue.

Diamond & Pearl text were translated over 2.5 months thereabouts. I think there was something like 210,000 words.
Platinum text arrived several years later. I think there was well over 100,000 new words of text, and I clawed through that in about a month and a half.
The pace was utterly insane involving 14-hour workdays and absolutely no holidays.




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