my notes for “my favorite places in pokemon”

i helped my dear darling sister hazel collect some footage for her most recent video and alongside it included some minor paragraph write-ups about what spoke to me about each area.

some of this was expanded upon by hazel and some of this didn't even make it into the final video. it's nothing major but i thought it'd be fun to share nonetheless.

—

the pokemon platinum villa: i remember hacking the shit out of my game just so i could get the money to pad out my villa. i dont even remember really chilling in the house. i was just so transfixed by the idea of having my own little base on my cool girl island. never really staying here also means i never noticed the water in the pool moving. it's so fucking vibey, minor landscape animation truly is the ds pokémon secret sauce. hell it even lives on in the waving of the grass in scarlet & violet.

—

unova liberty garden: my first pokemon event and it really blew me out of the water. it's one of my favorite spots in unova. the idea of a statue of liberty equivalent hiding a rare pokemon with its own little house really appealed to me. it kinda reminds me of all the gta rumors w the statue of happiness in gta 4.

taking this huge tourist spot and making both something so important (the home place of The Victory Pokemon) yet quaint with the empty island only really containing a port, vending machine and bedroom is so charming to me. it's something so important yet so small scale. i really like his bedroom.

unova cold freezer area: snow in games, it's honestly just an area thats stuck w me. no real reason to it. i think if i have to grasp at straws something about an industrial area that's still suseptible to the weather charms me. it's not just a cold bare boring steel intermodal container graveyard if theres a lil bit of snow.

unova train town: a genuine amazing smoke spot. (the joke title of the video was pokemon smoke spots) sitting in that lil corner i recorded i can imagine lighting up and watching people talk on the bridge. the way the trains spin around and come in and out sounds insane. its like a big fidget toy. you can get “deranged people watching” high or “baby sensory object go spin” high

unova gate smoke spot: yeah i like this place. It's chill. (wish i captured that greenscreen footage like a day later. girls love to rebrand!!!)

—

alola route 1 school area: grass patches in town in pokemon have always really captivated me. this quiet town entrance grass patch is like My Core Memory of Alola. i remember hunting for a 5% chance pichu here just so i could get alolan raichu early. with pichu being a friendship evolution i probably could have gotten it faster elsewhere but im such a stickler for catching my pokemon as early as possible. hunting for sryup the pichu on this route was so fun, its such a tight little strip of land between a main street, beachfront and police station yet it’s just enough space to have some trees and a really nice beach view. it reminds me alot of the park cut outs in a big city, little stretches of nature breaking out of the concrete, i honestly even find the baby gates to get in and out of the area charming. i like to pretend they're up solely because of the pokemon school close by, you dont want youngster fuckster getting his ass beat by the local rat population.

theres also this iconic video of someone using a lvl 100 ultra necrozmas z move against like a wingull and i always find hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby matchups very funny.

—

kalos water section: its just a beautiful rock face. I love to look at the beach below and chill in the grass. it takes me back to the stop sites we would set-up when i used to go hiking. after a few miles of walking just plopping down in the shade near a cliff or river and just watching nature for a bit to get you recharged. i also remember this patch of grass being where i first evolved my braxien into delphox and being genuninely viscerally disgusted by how ugly that thing is. coming to terms with my baby fox falling to the male gaze and getting #sexy was not something baby mae was prepared for.

—

ranger: i think this is the place i was thinking about? i remember that sorta multi-floored city area and the view uptop is really pretty. wish i knew more about this game tbh.

—

so yeah! that’s that. i had a lot of fun capturing footage for this video. it came together so fast in a way i’m not used to and i think that’s solely because of how much fun we were having. watching the final product is such a sweet treat for me just in the ways hazel took my harebrained shots and old childhood pokemon memories and cooked em together w her experiences. the video turned out great (unsurprisingly.) this won’t be the end of the m. sisters. watch this space etc etc, i love my sister and i love even more the fact i can say i am the co-author of the phrase:

Ice Baby Togepi