#anyways i sort of posted this to say: i added a tip option! ofc there is no pressure at all

[fakakta-art]

Inspired by that one Tumblr post

[isaacathom]

honestly im torn on whether a gym leader should actually be removed during the course of the game. like that sounds dope???? and 8 is the clear candidate, mostly because 5 hasnt done anything (which is in itself part of the problem) and 7 has also done absolutely nothing to deserve it, but 8 has. and it would actually be kinda interesting.

theres 3 options for removing 8 - before you get there, WHILE youre there, and after. like, while youre on the road, you hear that a gym leader was arrested. you arrive in that town a while later to find a decadent, gaudy gym with an apologetic Gym Man out the front, explaining there is no gym leader due to the arrest, and that standard practice is to shut down the gym until the matter is resolved. the matter would then either be resolved following the City thing (meaning you do the 8th gym AFTER the story climax), or right then, with the Champion or some other Elite arriving with a new gym leader. a candidate for this position would be Bronwyn, Jun’s wife. im kinda into that. shes a good candidate regardless.

thats option a. option b is During. and by that i mean, you challenge the 8th gym leader, this absolutely guadily dressed man, completely insufferable. you fight him, you wipe the floor, and as hes handing you your prize tm, the door bursts open. its the Org. theyre here for him. you watch as he’s taken away, screeching. when you leave, Zeke/Elliot greets you re: that and also the base thing. here, the reason for you going to the base would e to find out whats up. so Zeke sending you makes sense. so Zeke’s like ‘hey [Player], did you get your badge from him? you didnt? shit, maybe you should go catch up to those Org folk. theyre in [the base].’ and you go and walk in and it looks fairly normal, but theres noone there. you explore, you find a secret entrance (think like in Mahogany Town except more obvious), you go in. then you go through and thats when you end up finding Felicity, who is doing some last minute prep with the grunts who are going to the City (Dante is, at that point, with a separate team of grunts - the forward scouts for the area where the legendary is. Small Fry, we recall, has already been arrested by you previously), and when she locks you up after you beat her. the way you get out, in the end, is Elliot, who was tipped off by Zeke. see, Zeke saw you enter, and Zeke waited for a bit, but you never showed. he peeked in and found the secret entrance and got fucking spooked, so he’s called Elliot. noone has exited the building (theyre all leaving by another exit). so finally Elliot arrives, Zeke explains whats happened, and Elliot goes in, finds an empty ass base, a dropped 8th gym badge, and eventually you. yay! gives you the badge and then you both leave. and then shit happens. i kinda like this, though then the question is where the 8th gym leader ended up going. and also why the org would choose to arrest 8 THEN, right as theyre about to go head to head with the Team? unless Rhia is fucking with them. since shes sorta head of police. it would be kinda fun if Rhia decided that if she’s about to fuck up the org, she may as well use its power while its still there to be used, and arrests 8 as a last act before shit goes tits. idk. the timing doesnt REALLY work, i think. the zeke bit works, though.

option c is after. after the other stuff. once the Org/Team shit is settled, and basically after you beat the elite 4, the International Police arrive en masse to sort this absolute mess out. its during this sweep (and the seizure of Org property for the investigations) that 8′s theft is discovered, and hes promptly arrested and replaced. however, if this is the case, id suggest that the 8th gym remains closed for the duration of the post game missions w/ Lyndelle, and that once that questline is resolved, the 8th gym reopen with Bronwyn as its leader. i dont think youd be able to battle her, but she’d give you dialogue and an item (for rescuing Lyndelle, mostly) and itd just be chatter. whether she’d still be poison type? i dont think so. i dont think that type suits her. hmmm....... maybe Dragon? that’d be kinda kickass. idk.

but yea. hmm. b is interesting because it feeds into the plot, but it doesnt really make a lot of sense UNLESS 8 is actually a Team member? which would then make him a perfect fall guy for Dante and Felicity. you remove him from the gym in the guise of arrest, tell him you’ll pretend it was a mistake later, send him off to do his job, he goes to the legendary, and is promptly arrested as the head of the Team. and because he IS actually a Team member, and DOESNT know Dante (its assumed) then it would actually succeed. but on that front, i kinda prefer people being assholes without having to be in the evil team. and if hes NOT a team member, his arrest no longer makes sense in terms of the timing. unless the intent is to send a few Org members away so that they can then Arrive in the city to drive back the team? like reinforcements? could be interesting. but then, still, where did 8 go? if hes team, he’s gone to the legendary to help back up the Squad. if he’s not, where the fuck did he go? does Elliot free him on his way through? there aren’t actually cells in the base though, you were actually locked in the Office (where you met felicity, and which she teleported out of before disabling the teleporter). so where would they have put 8?? it just seems contrived to me

a is boring and would result in somewhat awkward pacing. i find the idea of having to fight the 8th gym after the story climax to be...... awkward...... which might seem strange given i like heartgold but i never said it was my favourite pokemon game, huh. it also happens in xy, funnily enough. did it happen in bw2? i think it did. wait fuck of course it did, fucking marlon. god i keep forgetting about fucking marlon. god i really did not like marlon at all. but yea. idk. it feels like a drop on tension if you go from the evil team climax to the 8th gym, because the 8th gym isnt climactic. but if you go from team climax to gameplay climax w/ victory road and the elite 4, THAT has some tension and release. that feels like better pacing, to me? idk. my only real examples areeee gen 3 and gen 7, actually........ hmm.... HMMN actually hold on what the fuck am i saying. oh, bw1, ofc, my bad. but like, the pokemon games i dislike the most (dppt and xy) both do it and it feels stupid in both cases. ‘theres a blackout’ fuck off. yall heard of battery power? fuck. actually wow fuck both blackouts in those games are stupid. it all makes sense. it all clicks. anyway what im saying is C is probably my preferred option, so long as it IS built up to at some point. like, some dialogue somewhere mentions the growing discontent with 8, so that when you wake up after beating the e4 and the news is going ‘breaking news: 8 has been arrested for siphoning funds into his personal bank account to fund his extravagant lifestyle’ the player doesnt go ‘what the fuck’. though i guess the fact he’s dressed like a prince in a manor-esque gym surrounded b sorta dingy streets shoooullldd clue the player in that something aint right about that mans finances. something aint adding up. someones added a few zeroes.

anyway back to bronwyn. what type she would be doesssss wholly depend on the e4. 1 member of the e4 is confirmed, and thats Rhia/Elliot, who are multi type trainers. so thats that specialisation taken care of. Bronwyn would not be a poison type trainer, because shes supposed to turn this city the fuck around. uh. OOH!!! FAIRY!!!! fuck!!! of course!!!!! she should a fairy type gym leader. fuck. though, oooo, what if the Champion is the fairy type? shit. shit shit. nn.

hmm. well, ok. one of these 5 trainers (3 e4, champ, Bronwyn) needs to be fighting. one should be ice, perhaps a foreigner (sinnoh? which discounts Bronwyn, who is from Unova.... though......... lotta ice. got a vanniluxe and everything...... HMMMMMMMM) Electric might be good, since that isnt represented at all in the gyms uh. fairy, of course. and... hmm. steel? that was sorta Elliots thing but id be fine with an actual steel expert. though that would be sorta weird since the implication with the e4 is that they’ve basically been unchanged since Elliot retired, until the OTHER guy also retired. so there being another steel expert doesnt make much sense, and i dont think it super fits Bronwyn. uh. tit. graaass? grass might be a good fit for Bronwyn actually, if its all about like, regrowth. thats a nice idea.

ok, Bronywn is grass type. so then the 4 e4c members are fighting, ice, electric and fairy. which ones the chaaaampion???? fairy?? fairy is probably best. nice.

i like that. i also think that maybe you SHOULD be able to challenge bronwyn at some point. maybe you can fight her, to ‘christen’ her gym. she wouldnt be difficult, i wouldnt think, but it’d be a nice fun thing. would she give you a badge, though? hmm... maybe she gives you multiple items instead. idk. that’s up in the air.

i do like that idea though. it WOULD be important to highlight that 8 wasn’t a member of the Team, though. idk how to really provide that distinction, and i suppose it doesnt matter much? plus, if you look at it, 8 has allowed the Team to build a base on town without batting an eyelid because 8 doesnt care, so, yknow, facilitation. gj, git.