pizadoc

[pizadoc]

Organism Intersection - A drabble inspired by Animal Crossing

“We have an alternative to the $10,000 down payment. It’s called the Life Mileage Program!” the landlord explains, gesturing towards the pamphlet as if it’s a used car he’s desperate to sell. “You earn points simply by living your life!” He grins, his teeth sparkling like the crust on an open milk jug. “This sounds like a crypto scam,” I ponder. “Maybe I have enough money?” I open my wallet, swiping away the dust. I sigh. “I’d rather just live in a tent.” “You have to pay for a tent,” he says. “How much?” I ask. “About $10,000.”

[pizadoc]

Rattatatouille - a fanfic

A Rattata walks off a ship that was hauling cargo from Kanto to Paldea, and this little guy came with nothing but a focus sash in a little bag tied to a string. It knows that strategy where you get hit by a Pokemon several dozen levels above you, and the focus sash keeps you on 1HP so  you can use endeavor to bring your opponent down to 1HP too. Then you quick attack and win the cheesiest victory of your life. Of course, there are a plethora of ways this strategy falls flat. For example, if it got burned or a sandstorm kicked up, it's game over for the Rattata. But listen. It’s a level 1 route 1 rat. Do you think it’s capable of coming up with anything better?

     Well, as it turns out, this little guy has grand ambitions of becoming a champion. 

     Of course the Rattata quickly realizes the hard truth. You know, besides the aforementioned truth that its strategy is absolute, concentrated, 100% artificially-flavored ass. There is also the fact that Pokemon can’t challenge gyms. Mainly because nobody knows that that’s what the Rattata is trying to communicate. All the humans hear is "Rattata, Rattata" because Pokemon could speak English in Kanto, but they could only say their own name. So it needed another way.

     It runs into this dude who just sucks at Pokemon battles. While it watches him battle with the most amateur strategies he’s ever seen, it looks at this guy's stupid little default hat and gets an idea. Without warning, it crawls up his back, dodging the guy's swinging arms and ignoring his panicked screams, crawls under the hat, and grabs his hair, using it to pilot his movement. At first the guy is horrified by his loss of bodily autonomy, but then he realizes that these piloted arm movements allow the Rattata to command his Pokemon. And it’s winning.

     The Rattata realizes that by pretending to be a human trainer, it doesn’t even need to use the silly focus sash strategy. It uses the guy as a meat puppet to battle with a team of other, higher-level Pokemon and win his way through the gyms. The guy being controlled decides that this rat's doing a better job than he could, so he kinda just lets it happen. In all honesty, The guy has received more praise in the past week than he had his entire life! The Rattata actually starts to get jealous, seething underneath the hat as it watches this human take all the credit for its hard work. so it devises a plan to reveal itself.

     As the human stands before Top Champion Geeta, the rat suddenly throws the hat to the ground! Everyone screams, and the Elite Four chase the Rattata off of the roof with broomsticks. Geeta doesn't make the connection that the Rattata has been piloting the human's actions and battle decisions through pulling his hair because why the fuck would anyone come to that conclusion. Instead, she wails, "I’m so sorry, we never have rats here, we're very clean usually." Meanwhile the human is holding in a massive pants-shit of pure terror because he can't do this fight by himself. He had retained zero actual battle strategies under the assumption that he would always have that random Rattata as his safety net. Despite this predicament, however, can this unconfident underdog pull through and prove himself as the shining star he was all along?

     No, actually. He loses horribly. Also the Pokemon league building has to be quarantined for a month so it can be checked for any strange diseases or plagues the rat could have carried over from Kanto. Meanwhile, the guy decides to take up cooking instead. Unfortunately he sucks at that too.

reposted from my ao3, just in case