Doctor Pokemon OR How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Breed Fictional Creatures

Pokemon. The very word sends thrills of… thrillingment down the spines of millions. Not all at once, mind; that would cause a global spree of traffic accidents and haloumi burns, but still, there's a great deal of love out there for Pokemon. What are Pokemon? I'm not going to dignify that with an answer, though I will answer in a prolonged, abstract fashion, thereby dignifying you with an answer AND being abstract all at the same time. I'm awesome like that.



In the world of Pokemon, there are hundreds upon hundreds of magical, intelligent creatures in the wild. People, usually children, form friendships with them and go on adventures with them, all the while befriending more and more, be they rare or common. And when I say 'befriend', I mean 'battle, then trap in a miraculous plastic ball' (a Pokeball), but by and large, the Pokemon themselves seem fine with this arrangement, and are powerful enough to leave their owners whenever they want, so I guess there's little to no muck in the ethical pond that is the Pokemon universe.

You've probably been exposed to Pokemon at some stage.



Don't worry, though, you won't have to deal with Cuba Gooding Jr. just yet. You see, the cartoon series, which flits between sweet, bounding coming-of-age fable revolving around the merits of friendship and perseverance, and hollow corporate grab-bag of recycled game manual rundowns, has about fourteen seasons under it's belt. It's been a part of of our lives for a long time, and has probably contributed to the complete lack of interest people have in trying out the game series. That, plus many of us are still recovering from the fact that Cheez TV doesn't exist anymore.



Anyway, the games involve hundreds of individual Pokemon, over a dozen different 'types' of Pokemon (ranging from water, to fire, to ghost, grass, flying… the list goes on), and each Pokemon has very specific abilities, strengths and weaknesses. Meaning you could spend a week building a dream team of Pokemon (you can have six with you at any one time, but can store hundreds on a computer), only to find that the Gym Leader you're up against (I can't go into that right now, but they're basically bosses, and they tend to favour specific 'types' of Pokemon… I guess I did go into it.) has a brutal group of Pokemon who are immune to what your team is good at. So… things get pretty fiddly.

But where things get insane is the breeding. I know what you're thinking: Paul, you're an idiot. Yes, I am an idiot. I'll give you that. But let me ask you this: who WOULDN'T want to breed this:



With this?



Crazy people. Crazy people with coal for organs, that's who. Plus, you can breed a myriad of overpowered abilities down generations of Pokemon, thereby creating SUPER POKEMON, so I manned up and decided to spend a day breeding Pokemon. And here's how it went.

At about ten in the morning, I went on Facebook and asked if anyone had either a Natu or Xatu, which I needed to breed with a Pidove, so that I could give a baby Natu 'Roost', an ability I eventually wanted to pass down to my Sigilyph. You following me so far? Good. After about ninety minutes of back-and-forth with a lovely guy named Ben, we arranged to do a trade. An hour later, I had my Natu. This is when I had to drop my Pidove off at daycare with Natu. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: if you dump two compatible Pokemon off at daycare, an institute typically reserved for CHILDREN, they HAVE SEX AND YOU GET AN EGG. Provided you can cope with the implications of how creepy that entire scenario is, you then have to pray that your egg hatches into the right gender, because the child of a couple will always be the same species as the mother, so if you don't plan several steps ahead, you're boned. But wait! It gets even more convoluted! Because by leaving your Pokemon at daycare (the place where the sex is at), you also ensure they'll level up under the careful tutelage of the creepy but well-meaning old couple who run the joint. And as they level up away from your watchful gaze, they could forget the move you're desperately hoping they pass on to their daycare-conceived progeny. And because you're probably exhausted by this point, there's every chance that you'll forget this fact, grab your eggs, and find that hours of breeding was for NAUGHT BECAUSE THIS IS THE FIFTH FRIGGING NATU THAT DOESN'T KNOW ROOST AND OH WAIT, MY PIDOVE FORGOT IT TWELVE LEVELS AGO, THANKS FOR NOTHING GRANDMA.



FUCK YOU, PIDOVE. Then, for some reason, six hours of sluggish trauma pass insipidly by whilst you peddle inanely back and forth outside a fictional daycare centre, fumbling your dead thumbs against the buttons of your 3DS, swearing every time the egg yields the wrong species. HOW is that even possible? So you take a break and go for a walk. And you explain the quandary to your partner, whose disgust is ever-so-slightly overwhelmed by their long-suffering love towards you. And they point out, totally deadpan, that you're a moron who was getting the gender signs wrong. 'The circle with the arrow is male, not female', she says. So you go home, and you cry, and twelve hours after you started this whole debacle, the egg hatches. And you get your Pokemon. And you travel to Japan, and are found dead, in a gutter, grasping a stick of wasabi flavoured gum and Pikachu-emblazoned soiled schoolgirl panties.

Conclusion: Pokemon is awesome.