#189time

OH SHIT BERRY YES I’LL TELL YOU BUT FIRST I GOTTA

A—

Because holy shit I’ve been dying for someone to ask but at the same time I’m like holy shit no Chief shut up this is self-indulgent BUT. 

AA—

Okay, ok we good. SO first off let’s just say Pokémon timelines are even more confusing than Zelda timelines so I’m not even gonna dip my toes into looking what happens first/etc. ALSO SECOND THIS MIGHT END UP BEING A LONG-ASS WORD-VOMIT ALL OVER DASH BUT LET’S FUCKING GO. 

SO. ROCKET, RIGHT. 

We know what happened between Jay and them. But we also know that Jay is just One Dude. When Aqua was disbanded (read: when Jay fled Hoenn because shit hit the fan and he didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire), Jay returned to his hometown of Goldenrod city, Johto, which is also one of Rocket’s main playgrounds. And while he’s just One Dude, he has other friends that are also fed up with the Big Red R and how it’s got fingers in nearly every pie. Corrupt judges, public servants, cops and TV providers, to name only a few, are a few of the things that makes that one crime syndicate so untouchable. And that’s where a few fed up people decided to hit first. Personal information and receipts were released to the public. Acts of vandalism were performed. Everything to start getting a rise out of the greater Johtonese population. 

At first, it was a nameless movement. Just people deciding to take action, without much direction. Rallies, walks, unorganized action. Sure, it’s good to see people getting together to try and change things, but it needed... More. 

Now, Jay is not a public person by any means, but he actually spoke up at one of those smaller rallies, and sharing part of his experience and views touched something within the crowd. Sure, from the beginning of this, he was just another anonymous rioter wearing a mask to hide his identity, but slowly, people started looking up to him, to the point where a group actually took form and named itself, and him too. Jay picked neither names, ‘Wildfire’ and ‘Fox’ being something that spread on its own after being thrown around a few times. And it’s at that moment that it started to gain traction. 

Being thrust at the forefront of the movement, Jay and a few trusted friends had to start giving shape to it. Wildfire, unlike the ‘teams’ you meet in the Pokémon world, is not an overly organized movement. People who joined it come from all walks of life, and there’s no uniform, no membership, no pay and no secret base. Every single call to rally is a text message sent through a burner phone, within a few minutes to a couple of hours from the event. Everything is made so it is unpredictable and hard to track. It’s a group that’s scattered and hidden in plain sight, a group of ruffians, misfits, activists, anarchists, dreamers, vigilantes and people hungry for justice and revolution, ready to fight the power. Stirring trouble, encouraging civilians not to let Rocket get their way, giving the means of self-defense back to the people who felt wronged by the criminal syndicate that infiltrated the various power structures in Johto and Kanto. Graffiti, hacking, arson, theft, damage to property, releasing classified information to the media, even assault sometimes, but no casualties caused by them, no innocent harmed by them. Exposing people, dragging them out into the public eye. Everything to give Rocket a hard time and retake what belongs to the people — going as far as to admit that if they have to, they’re ready to actually topple more than just a criminal syndicate to get rid of it. Even if there has to be a stock market crash or if the socio-economic climate has to change.

With something this big, Jay has to keep his identity hidden for sure. Fox is an entirely different entity: it’s a symbol that people rally under. The Arsonist that lit the Wildfire, someone even say. Something that big is intimidating, and he makes sure that his identity is entirely secret and protected. Only a few people know of it, one of them even being some kind of Second Fox to make sure that Jay himself has alibies and can be seen somewhere while Fox is somewhere else. 

In this verse, the fight takes place not only in Goldenrod city, but in Johto and Kanto. The climate is especially tense in Goldenrod city, where people know the movement originated, but the point of being scattered and mostly anonymous is that it can hit anywhere at the same time. And at some point, three-four-ish years down the road, because things like that need time to gain traction and enough manpower, and it takes time to clean trash out of some systems, the fight will be taken to a higher level. Because you can’t kill a hydra unless you go for the whole body—cutting off the heads is just a way of stalling for time.

And does Jay live for it? On one side, yes, he’s feeling like he’s accomplishing what he was always meant to do. On the other hand? Holy shit dude that’s some STRESS, he needs a break, he wants a break, can this be over please? Because we’re not excluding the thought that while Wildfire does its best not to cause casualties, Rocket doesn’t tend to have these principles. 

“ You’re Challenger Hop, aren’t you? ”

     Craig wasn’t a trainer himself... Well, not in the traditional sense, at least. He had Pokémon, but he didn’t like making them fight unless absolutely necessary. He used them more for assistance around the Sanctuary. That’s just the sort of mindset one develops when they spend so much time around injured Pokémon, he supposed.

     That being said, he still admired strong trainers who knew how to handle their Pokémon. Watching Hop battle, he could tell his team really trusted him.

This isn’t right...this isn’t fair!  Hop saved her, and her Mum gave up so much to take care of her after her dad left — after Dad left BECAUSE OF HER.  She drove her mother’s love from her, and still she stuck by her.  Hop rescued her from aloneness when Mum couldn’t be there — which was most of the bloody time.  

Sure, things could be tense with both of them these days — Mum not understanding why Lillian wants nothing to do with Dad, or worse, understanding and simply not caring ; Hop loving, and loving, but far away, but resentful of her win / of the time she can no longer devote to him.  But she loves them both.  It’s not like...it’s not FAIR to make her choose between the only two people who ever gave a shit about her before she was famous...!

“I ——— ah, I...”  Selfish, ungrateful thing.  Entitled, cruel.  

Funny.  She’d be thinking the same thing even if she’d made the opposite choice.

DOODLE DUMP! request edition ! ! 

hi, one last thing for berry ( @189time​ ) before i go to work. 

marnie starts crushing on/liking hop probably shortly after bede gets his endorsement letter taken away. how and why? well. at first she was wanting to make sure that he was okay. cause you know. thats what friends do. but after ‘bede’ kinda loses his chance at the championship, she realises that theres something more about hop that she likes. she doesn’t know what to think of it at first. she thinks its just silly emotions and she’s getting over and ahead of herself. so... she says nothing. not even to piers. ( though she does ask about liking another person and whatnot )

piers probably figures on fairly quickly ( and so does probably leon mainly cause... you know... marnie is ALWAYS asking about hop and where hop is to leon ) that she likes hop. im sure her brother is supportive, but she is a private person so i don’t think he would really get on her about it. 

i think her feelings develop a bit more after the championship and everything. it comes with every single time she and hop hang out. when they’re on the couch watching tv and overall chilling. it really does being to hit her hard after hop has his moment/small and short-lived falling out with the protag(s). 

it DEFINTELY starts to show at that fire. she comes faster than anybody else should. she straight up would stop her gym battle for him. she can and will drop everything for him. she really really does love him.

alas. she never says anything. she holds it in. so unless hop says or asks or does something to inquire it. she’ll just shrug it off as we’re just close friends.

yes marnie would freindzone herself cause fuck what are feelings we don’t have them.