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Pokédrag: Who Ya Gonna 'Hey, Girl'?

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Unlike with the storage system (Bill’s PC) within my Pokédrag world, I had not uploaded my Pokémon game files to cloud storage when I had the opportunity. Therefore, when disaster struck my laptop, I found myself without my troupe. It has been a rather trying two weeks. Thankfully, hard drives can be recovered, and I was able to return to my troupe, which had just arrived in Lavender Town!

As far as towns go, it was a bit larger than some I’d visited, and the Pokémon Tower, where you could pay respects to your dead comrades, seemed to be the center. While I had not lost any of my kings or queens to such dire circumstances, I decided a tour would be an appropriate way to mourn any damage and pain we had inflicted in our fight for entertainment — I could also pay respects to Remy, my late laptop.

Little surprise that the entire place was haunted, and as I beat the possession (note: not plural) out of the channelers while getting to the top of the tower, I kept being told the ghosts from which I was fleeing around the towers could only be fought and identified if I had the Silph Scope. Okay, so where was I going to find that? They were not able to give me much help.

During this time, I had taken along Solid (Snake) for her ability to provide a dark bite. Normally I would raise my eyebrows at such a move, but against the incorporeal, it just didn’t quite seem to have the same stigma. She must have grown weary of constantly biting ectoplasm, however, as she decided the Ekans act was now old. Instead, she grew into a much more showy Arbok. Ekans was at least spelled correctly backwards, so I looked at her choice of the letter k as I did with the ‘90s teens who thought it had to be kool (or kewl, if they were being particularly grating).

Having nothing else to do, I continued on to the west, theoretically to reach and explore Saffron City. However, I was turned away at the gate! There were a number of Pokétrainers outside, complaining, and they all decided to vent their frustration through the Pokéballs they threw at my feet, to explode into a flurry of battle. During this time, Mendel, who has been quietly brought along to cut down trees, had decided that Oddish was a nice identity, but perhaps a bit too ambiguous in its intent. Enter Gloom! There are simply not enough goth queens, and I’ve certainly never seen a goth king (though emulating Marilyn Manson would be appropriately gender bent).

There were even twins! In a first, I was suddenly putting out two Pokédrag tutees. They had never participated in a collaborative performance, so I was a bit anxious about how this would fare. Daenerys and Mendel managed to pull off one stunning performance where there may have been suggestive themes involved. There were puffs, steam, and plenty of flames to cover the more risqué portions.

Following this bit, we decided to make our way on to Celadon City by way of another tunnel. I will say this in favor of the world in which I found myself: They had very effective underground transportation.

Celadon City was truly a metropolis compared to what I had seen before. A five story department store. Gambling parlors. Mansions where I was given tea. The underground lair of Team Rocket. Another gym, this one led by a horticulturalist named Erika.

First thing was first: There was some shopping to do. Along the way to Celadon City, I had heard tell of certain stones helping Pokémon to evolve. Well, I looked at Mendel and her appearance was a dreadful fright — in the not-good way. I wanted to help him along a bit, so using a Leaf Stone I had purchased, we upgraded his act to that of a Vileplume. Much, much more acceptable.

While I had discovered the hideout of Team Rocket by pressing a button behind a poster in the casino (which, I must admit, I did indulge in for a bit, though only with the coins I was given by the other patrons), I decided my first order of business was tackling the gym of the area. You may not be aware of this, reader, buy gay men love gyms. While I am filling out this Pokédex, I would perhaps put in a certain variety of gay man whose habitat is the gym. It was a vain hope, but I thought perhaps we could find more recruits!

Which was silly, as this particular gym had only women! Though, it was delightful in that we fought against trainers who were very, very concerned about their makeup. At the same time, I was rather rudely told at the very beginning that only ‘REAL’ women belonged in this gym. I looked that particular woman up and down, snapped my fingers three times to make a Z, and then tossed my hair as I walked away from her defeated Pokémon mewling on the ground.

Another trainer implicated that I was a peeping Tom, and that I was rather smitten with the leader, Erika. Now, I am neither a straight man, nor a lesbian queen, so I gave that particular woman the side-eye before making my way to Erika herself. She was rather difficult, but my first Pokédrag queen of choice having been Daenerys, the grass-Pokémon of which she was fond were merely fuel for a brush fire. Defeating Erika even won me the Rainbow Badge! How appropriate.

Continuing on to Team Rocket’s hideout, I found myself using Ms. Jumbo a lot, as her psychic powers seemed rather appropriate for all the pollution-based Pokémon I found myself facing. It wasn’t long until she had enough of the somewhat frumpy Drowzee act and took on more of a stage magician’s role through Hypno’s guise. Drag is a certain magic itself, so the art of misdirection seemed to be even more appropriate for her.

When we reached the bottom of the hideout, we were confronted by a stereotypically Italian gang-boss-type man, whose Pokémon were rather rough. Now, this element of society and drag performers have a somewhat colored history, but we generally have not been treated well by them. Therefore, I felt no qualms in having both Ms. Jumbo and Daenerys blast his Pokémon with the full weight of their grandeur. Defeating him caused the Silph Scope to drop!

Having taken care of our business in Celadon City, I decided it would be time to trek back to the Pokémon Tower next week. I wanted to provide the poor bedeviled Pokésouls in the Tower the ghost of a chance to turn their life around with a good drag performance. After all, ghost drag performers sound like a scream.

Femme Fatale in the making.
The drool is what gets me.
Perhaps a bit girly for a drag king, but it'll do.
Creepster!
Oh, girl, I know. I know all too well.
Excuse you? She better recognize...
Not into kai kai, thank you very much.

Comments

Welcome back, Denis!

Good luck in the Pokémon Tower.

It's dangerous to go alone - take this: (NSFW)

Are you playing this via an emulator? If so, may I ask which one?

Thank you, all!

Malor, indeed. Using VisualBoyAdvance (have a copy of the game, but wanted screenshots, which was going to be a pain otherwise).