I, as a person, have been obsessed with Pokemon since I was just a kid. It was my home, the place I went to escape from a world that didn’t I didn’t understand. It was my playground, a place where my sister and I could create whatever story we wished, the legendary battles of the anime at our fingertips. It was my trans awakening, even if I didn’t know it at the time. It was the place I went when I had nothing else, no one else to trust, where I found friends that I still look back on with respect, despite my parting from them.

I absolutely, totally adore Pokemon.

There’s been a lot of rightful criticism of game freak over the last few years, primarily as a result of the middling quality of their games. My largest discontent is Scarlet and Violet, the only Pokemon games that I’ve played that I don’t look back on fondly, something I mostly attribute to questionable design decisions with the Pokemon and the unavoidably poor stability of the games. I personally don’t particularly mind the difficulty of the games, myself. I personally think that of course veterans find them easy, they’ve played through the series perhaps dozens of times. While I hate the saying, the games are in fact, tuned to the level that a kid could get through.

Do you not look back on your first time playing through a pokemon game with joy? That feeling of wonder at the appearance of new pokemon, the struggle of remembering type combinations, of the frustration of not being able to find a pokemon you want, an evolution you desire. Why do you think that the protagonist’s avatar is always a child? The wonder that pokemon gives is synonymous with that period of life, where you come into yourself and find who you are as a person.

In that aspect, perhaps as a trans woman I am lucky.

Strictly speaking, pokemon was the first safe space I was allowed to really enjoy the process of being someone else, someone I wished I could be. I didn’t know it at the time, but that deep guilt and embarrassment I felt about playing as a girl wasn't because it was wrong. It was because I was afraid that they would take it away from me, that I wouldn’t be able to continue on that path. I guess you could say I was the protagonist of my little story, one of teenage angst, depression, and most of all deep, uncompromising loneliness. Yet, it has a somewhat happy ending. I found myself, my family was supportive, I was able to find like minded people online that accepted me. I made mistakes then and I make mistakes now, but as an adult- what a strange thing to call myself- I truly believe that it’s Pokemon that was my hope.

I think, overall, that’s why I am drawn to the series, to the enigma that is Pokemon. Yet, the reason I stay is the stories it creates. The creators have managed to craft an unparalleled series of stories that inspire all of us who love the series to step forward and follow in their footsteps.

Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, the classics. They were the true beginning, a place where kids would run around the countryside searching for mythical beasts unlike anything they had found before, yet a threat looms above them. Team Rocket, in my approximation, is the most blatant example of Gamefreak attributing corruption and organized crime. Giovanni is a seemingly normal man, one who rose to become a Gym Leader on his own strength, yet his greed inspires him to lead the primary threat to the world around him.

He gets deeper in Gold, Silver, Crystal. There, they reveal that Giovanni was not just a criminal mastermind, but a father. This isn’t just to the misguided Redhead however, but to the entirety of Team Rocket, and in his absence they cry out for his return, his guidance. He doesn’t listen, disappearing into the night to avoid the consequences of his action.

Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald were swansongs to the series. Game Freak put everything they had into it, to create a masterpiece that would stand the test of time as worthy finales in the worst case scenario. It worked out, though I seem to remember this story being told for basically every generation. It stands out most here, in my opinion. This trilogy, despite the presence of Ho-oh and Lugia in the previous games, was the first to focus heavily on the ‘Box Legendaries’ that were the primary selling point of their games. While some would argue otherwise, perhaps for black and white, in my opinion it isn’t until Scarlet and Violet that the differences in the version of the games is as truly pronounced, different as it is in these three games. This is the start of an era of the games that I find are defined by the villains rather than the heroes. Fundamentally, they are the same, a team of technically well meaning yet misled activists using violence to get what they feel is correct for the world. It’s a theme they always seem to come back to, but RSE was the first. They force you to think of what the correct answer to such a question would be- Should we support the innovation of humanity over all else, or use our power to protect nature at the cost of progress?

Diamond, Pearl, Platinum were the first games I got right as they were released. Perhaps the hardest games, mostly due to somewhat poor type distribution. Team Galactic is the most undeniably sinister villain in the series, undeniably a cult of personality beneath the enigmatic Cyrus. He’s what stands out most, for me, about these games. That undeniable villain is portrayed wildly differently every time I see him. A passionate, insane fool. A cold psychopath. An intellectual convinced he is the future. It’s fascinating how a character we barely talk to can be interpreted in such variation. He touches powers beyond his control, which is something that makes him stand out of the crowd- It’s his own folly that is his downfall, you barely had anything to do with it.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Black and White, and their sequels, are iconic for different reasons then the rest. They’re likely the most controversial entries in the series, beyond Scarlet and Violet, for their vast departure from what the games had once been. The first games have nearly none of the pokemon from the previous, a brand new experience for everyone. Yet, that isn’t what most people remember. Team Plasma is undeniably the most impactful pokemon team in the entire series. The questions they ask are hard to answer well, and despite the corruption that turns out to be in control those are the questions that people take away from the stories. Truth and Ideals, forever separate due to the folly of man. I like to look at it as childhood innocence.

I’ll get back to X/Y, because it’s the most important for Ranger Reject, so let's talk about the Delta Episode real fast. Zinnia is a great character, a narcissist who wishes to save the world through bonding with the most powerful pokemon. She rejects the method that the Devon corporation puts forth to save the world, claiming that it would simply doom another. But like, she’s us, isn’t she? Zinnia is a protagonist, but she’s also the pokemon community, one single girl crying out in anguish at the selfish decisions made by a corporation who controlled everything she loved. In the end, we’re the ones who win, but our victory would be assured regardless of who befriended Rayquaza.

Sun and Moon are the direct follow ups of the delta episode. For the first time, we’re not the main protagonist- Lillie is. We follow her around Alola, serving as her silent protector, and the story is well remembered as well as typically well regarded as a result. People love her, that girl who grows thanks to new friends despite her perhaps irreparably fractured family. For me though, sun and moon is the first game where the typically villainous ‘Team’ is just a group of misguided ruffians rather than a truly villainous force.

That message is continued in Sword and Shield, by the supposed team just being rabid fans of best girl Marnie. Which like, fair, but it's interesting to me how the only truly villainous force in Galar is one who simply wishes to prevent a future tragedy. Prisma Cosmos is a strange reflection of the Aether Foundation, one who tried to do the right thing, yet failed regardless. It asks you a question, of whether we should trust the word of a corporation making decisions for everyone else.

Scarlet and Violet… oh you poor games. Despite their issues, their story is what kept me playing. I don’t love paradox pokemon, but the reason they are there and exist is fascinating. The trio we follow here are surprisingly deep, and the Evil team of the region are just bullied kids that despite winning have let the power go to their heads. That storyline was the most interesting in the games in my opinion, one questioning when a righteous cause shifts into a selfish one.

Now that we looked at everything else, you may ask, Alia, why are the other games so important here? All this has done is highlight how mediocre X/Y’s story is! That may be true, at first glance, but while doing work for this series it finally clicked for me what X/Y’s message truly is. Maybe it was obvious for others, so it wasn’t spoken about but…

Kalos, a nation once ruled by nobility before it gained its freedom, is secretly still in the upper classes hands. It’s sort of a fascinating look at the reality of the world at the moment, all entirely kept under the facade of an ‘ultimate weapon’ that ends up doing nothing despite being fired.

Team Flare is my favorite villainous gang in the series. Its members, similar to team galactic, are people caught in the cult of personality that is Lysandre. The difference is, they have to pay to be in the team, pay to fight for a cause. They change everything about themselves to do so, to give their lives to a supposedly self made man. It’s a scathing commentary both on subscription culture and on the echo chambers that can form around certain ideologies. When the rich people, the nobles of our current world, begin a fad, those who can’t afford it yet desire to fit in, follow right behind no matter what it costs them.

Using these funds team flare completely dominates the region, completely controlling the media, blatantly performing acts of major disruption without much of a reaction at all from the pokemon league. The protagonist and their friends are essentially the only conflict they have in their plans, in fact, the only characters beside them that attempt to fight back are Dexio and Sina, and they use masks so they aren’t recognized!

When all else is said and done, the leader of Team Flare who literally took life and death into their hands dead or missing, what exactly happens to the people that were members of that group? They go back to life as normal, except for Xerosic, who is hunted down by the international police. Malva, a character who canonically worked with team flare, is able to go back to her position of power as a member of the Elite four without a single word of discontent. The story of X/Y wasn’t finished- and I think that’s something that makes it fascinating to write a fic about.

Imagine the impact that would occur if Donald Trump died tomorrow, which at the time of writing is just a month away from a presidential election. His devoted followers would grieve, remember his story, then move on to the next big figure that spouts the same nonsense as him. Fundamentally, nothing has changed beyond the flag they fly, and that's the situation Kalos is left in at the end of X/Y. The nobility still controls the region, the world goes on as normal despite the potential tragedy that had occurred right in front of them.

After all, they failed to wipe everyone else out, didn't they?

There are other potential themes you could extrapolate, the uncomfortable parallels between this and Nazi Germany, how Lysandre is nearly perfectly a copy of Elon Musk, or how the ‘guardian of the world’ is sitting off to the side, having done nothing to stop the incursion on the safety of the world.

Yet, that isn’t what I’m doing with my story.

This is my love letter to pokemon, my own take on the world. It's full of drama, sure, but there is still hope hidden behind every corner, a place where everyone can find their own truth.

Our primary POV character is a blank slate, one who literally climbed into a story that isn’t their own, and having to deal with a Kalos fractured. They’ll be constructed before your eyes, a character who is, despite their dark past, someone who deserves to be themselves. We’ll experience how they gain their new life, how they find new friends, family, even love.

I know I said it before, and I'll likely keep repeating those three words as much as I can. In the end, there is one real reason this fic exists.

I love Pokemon.