Alfornada Gym, Montenevera Gym, Glaseado Gym, and Team Star Fighting Crew (#212)

[00:00:01] Hello and welcome to Expairager, my name is TANNER GREENRING! Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. Tuesday. My name is Setitaner. Whoa. Uh, Setitan? Setitan. I like Setitan. I like, I like the line. Setitaner. Yeah. And I'm joined as always by Flee-or-gus. Florges? I don't get the Sunday Monster Truck Rally intro.

[00:00:42] Fjel-or-gus, not for Florges. Ugh. I didn't like seeing it again, and it was tough, the one that we fought. Not for me. Maybe for you, not for me. I mean, it's not like I was on the ropes, but like, we finally had some challenging battles. I did it.

[00:01:00] I was absolutely not on the ropes because as you were commenting on before we got into the report. When I took one look at the notes. My health levels have gotten a little out of control.

[00:01:09] I was trying to like, not fight many people and Pokemon to keep my levels like, lower so that I can have some actual like, challenge. I need to follow my sword because last week you and I and our friend Greg Leatherman were in the heat of battle.

[00:01:26] Mm-hmm. Which I decimated both of you at. Yep, and I got a slack from my boss at work saying that something I published to the internet. Humble brag that you have a job. Lots of people to look at. Yeah.

[00:01:39] Had a glaring error in it, and I was trying to fix the error while battling you and recording with Greg. And it didn't go well, and I had to excuse myself quickly. Mm-hmm.

[00:01:50] But it sounds like you and Greg made a lot of executive decisions on what we were getting up to this week. I just kind of threw it to him, and this is what he inflicted on all of us. That's fine. Us and the bug catchers.

[00:02:01] Because you texted me then later that evening after the calamity had ended. Calamity Tanner. It was easy to fix, and I probably could have like, rejoined you guys even. But at that point it was just like, I was out.

[00:02:13] Did you hear the outro? I think we did a pretty good job. Yeah, great. Good. You guys should do a podcast together. Yeah, maybe we will. Leatherman and Finger is kind of fun together, but you'd have to really commit to adopting Bobby's last name.

[00:02:25] I am in the process of changing my middle name, and I'm thinking about also adding his in there. We didn't change him. Throw mine in there too. Yeah. Just for fun. I'll put Joshua in my name somewhere.

[00:02:37] That would sound nice. Get Green Ring in there. It's a real mess. Joshua O'Connor Finger... Wait, what would the order be? Joshua O'Connor Green Ring Finger Fjellstad. That is a mess. That's a mess. That is a mess.

[00:02:52] Let's talk about what you and Greg committed us to this week. Because you then texted me and said, here's what we're doing next week. Didn't seem like that much. And I think it makes sense. At the time. I think it makes sense because we're over leveled.

[00:03:04] Yeah, we had to clean it up. It's a mess. Do that last Star Street battle with the... whatever her name is. She's like a wrestler. Raja... Ra-ha... Ra-ha? She's like a wrestler. She's got like a weird face paint on. Oh, no, it was Eerie. Infernal Eerie.

[00:03:21] Eerie. Yes. The fighting type. She kept saying Ra-ha. That was like her battle cry. That's why I was confused. And then the last three gyms, which was Mont... What were they? Monta Navera, Al Fornada and Glaciero. Yes. Ghost, Psychic and Ice.

[00:03:43] The last three main non-Elite Four gyms that we had to take care of. Yes. And I did it all. Oh, me too. I think that was a good course of study. But where did you begin your journey? I started down in the West Province, Area 6, outside Al Fornada

[00:04:03] because the other two were up on the mountain. I'm sorry to interrupt. I think there's something we have to do and it feels silly to do it, but we've already kind of touched on it and it was the bulk of my week this week. Okay.

[00:04:15] Not just bulk of my playing week, but bulk of my human week, man week. We should do level check. We're going to do level check now. My levels are out of control and I did spend a lot of time this week. It's like embarrassing what you did.

[00:04:28] Just like running around with a ball of poop following me and then I would get into fights with Bisharp. Any Bisharp I could find, honestly. Oh, because you were doing that other quest. Little Valley right outside of the Fighting Star. There were so many there.

[00:04:43] Well, straight out, first of all, Rellor would go away. Thank you for walking with me, Rellor, but now it's Bisharp's time to come around. Okay. All right. It's level check. Level check! Should I go first? I think clearly you're going first.

[00:05:00] I'm just like signposting to let you just have the runway that you need to regale me and the bug catchers about how you ended up in this situation. Here's what happened. There's a little valley right outside of where the Team Star fighting crew hangs out,

[00:05:17] whatever her name is. Eerie. Eerie. There's a little valley and that valley is full of level 50 Pokemon, so it's a good place to train if you're looking to train. Yeah, the trainers have not largely caught up, but the wild Pokemon have caught up in the wild area.

[00:05:34] So we can get that Stinger back in there. Yeah. I had two challenging guys Esteban and Jumano is dealing with. Like problematic? Not quite ready to come out of their shells. Oh, they're just shy? Shy or like... Standoffish? Yeah, reserved. Yeah.

[00:05:51] And one of them, of course, like he woke up one day and he was a beetle. That will fuck with anyone's head, obviously. It takes a lot to come back from that. I mean, that I think is probably the main hang up

[00:06:01] that Gregor Samsa has been going through this season. Yeah. Like, oh, like I used to be this like suave, handsome, like tall, dark and handsome guy. And now I'm a dung beetle. Rick Bingo just has like a chip on his shoulder.

[00:06:15] His whole thing is like, I have to defeat these strong dads. That's my king. I think I've seen that sight. I can't evolve until I defeat three strong dads. So that's what we got up to. I was running around this valley with a piece of poop following me.

[00:06:33] Fine, gotten used to that. Yeah. And I have to walk slow. Or else he pops back into my ball. Did you take Greg's advice and do the thing where you just run around in LaVentia? I've done it, man. I've done it. One way or another.

[00:06:46] I've run in circles for like 10 minutes. I was sitting and watching Pride and Prejudice and Zombies last night and just running in a circle, just trying to get this fucking thing to evolve. There was a theory I saw, I think on the subreddit or maybe the Twitter,

[00:06:58] but a bug catcher said that maybe it's also like it needs to be all done in one shot. I cracked the code. Might have been the problem. I cracked the code. Fuck all of you. I know the problem. I know the problem. Okay, what's the problem?

[00:07:11] What this wind up is crazy. Where are you going? Here's my level check. Here's the first two of my level check. Gregor Samsa, Rapsca. I can't wait to see this thing. I have not looked it up. Gregor Samsa, Rapsca, level 67. Looks beautiful.

[00:07:24] Oh, it's like a wizened dung beetle. It sort of grosses me out. Or is it not dung anymore? Well, I think it's right. What is that? Let's discuss. Is this a guy still? Well, he was never quite a guy. Right, he was formerly a guy.

[00:07:40] I think he's now a ghost. Hear me out. He evolved, finally, and here's what it took. I walked up the side of Glaciato Mountain with him at a snail's pace so he could keep up with me. And we were battling Pokemon the entire way up.

[00:07:56] And at the very top of Glaciato Mountain, there's like a trainer right before you get to the city where the ghost-type gym is. Manta Nevera. And in that battle, I took Rallor out and I fought the guy and he leveled up in battle.

[00:08:11] And after that battle, he finally evolved into Rapsca. What a journey. Same thing is true of King Gambit. It took bringing whatever he was called before King Gambit into battles with the daddy Bisharps and fighting them mano e mano instead of Pokemon Go style

[00:08:32] where you're sending them out to battle. And it took fighting five of them that way until Bisharp finally evolved into King Gambit. So that's the trick, is it has to happen in battle, I think. No, that's not right. You can use a rare candy. Oh yeah, you're right.

[00:08:46] I just ground these two fucking level Pokemon up to level 67 and 68 for like shits and giggles. I don't know about King Gambit, but I can guarantee that Rapsca's deal is not leveling up in battle specifically. Okay, okay, well that's how I did it.

[00:09:01] So finally, welcome to the team, Gregor, Samsa, Rapsca, level 67, Rick Bingo, King Gambit, level 68. That's gross. And everyone else was just around for the fucking ride. So Donna's car, Reveruum, level 64, Donna Baker, Meowscardo, level 62. God. Who only saw the most minuscule action this week.

[00:09:21] I brought her out for charity. Like, oh, Donna, you haven't been out this week. Come out and take a hit at Reveruum. And she died in one hit. It's like, great, thanks Donna. You're holding your weight around here, carrying your weight. Yeah. Lady Beth, Armor Rouge, level 62,

[00:09:37] unstoppable godlike force. And then Fiona Eilish, Wellspring, Ogre Pond, level 58. Who just refuses to level, but is still extremely strong. She's in the mix now. I mean, all but her are higher levels than any of my Pokemon. That was my week, Joshua.

[00:09:56] That was my week, crawling through this valley with a piece of poop. That sucks. Beating daddies up. That's really rough. And that's why we had to do level check early. What was your week like? I had a quest. I was, my knights were trying to take on

[00:10:10] and we simply ran out of time. I know what I have to do and where I have to go. But I did recruit a new knight. Okay, let's discuss. Who is it? Well, first of all, I should say the Black Knight,

[00:10:23] as it's been alluded to in these past few legs of the journey, was sort of going down a darker path than Don Joey is trying to go down. He wants noble knights, is what he's sort of decided here. Yeah. And the Black Knight is on his own journey

[00:10:40] and it's down a darker path. So he's out, but we did find another traveler in the dark of night, Canterbury tails out on the slopes of Glaciato. We saw a shining beacon down the slope and couldn't make out what it was and went down there.

[00:11:02] And, you know, it was a Fridji Bax. And also, I'm so glad you have one. And I'm so officially Joshy sweetie eager to hear your justification for how it's on a team of noble knights. He calls himself Arthur and oh, because he's got the sword

[00:11:26] and he is on a quest to discover and pull out all of the black ominous stakes in the ground because he's searching for the Excalibur is what he keeps ranting about. Is this what Greg was explaining last week? That's what the stakes are for? No. The Excalibur?

[00:11:46] That's just the lore for Don Joey. But I tried to go to history class and I did it after I had some time today and I was like, oh, I got to go to history class. But I did it after the Team Star fighting crew

[00:12:00] and I went to the Academy and I don't know if you had time for this. So I'll save it. We didn't discuss it, so I didn't do it. Okay, so I'll save it for next week then because I got I'm ahead in the storyline.

[00:12:14] There's a big reveal when I tried to go to class and I because of this reveal that I then had to deal with I could not go to class so I couldn't go to history and I still do not know what's going on with the black stakes.

[00:12:26] But it's just part of the narrative for Fridgybacks. Fridgybacks slash now Arctobacks also Joshy sweetie is on his own journey that he's trying to like collect these black sticks. Just so beautiful. So tender. He's so so cute when he comes out and it's in a timer ball.

[00:12:44] So it's also fun. Yeah, that's what Lady Beth is into. And when he comes out the Arctobacks, he like roars a little bit and then gets down on his haunches like ready to like pounce like a velociraptor. It's just great. Well done, Pokemon company.

[00:12:59] I saw a thread on the Scarlet and Violet like subreddit where somebody was like just swinging against Bax Caliber and they were like this whole line sucks. You suck, guy. Get some taste person. Yeah, what are you doing spending all your days on Reddit?

[00:13:15] Yeah, you're just posting on the Scarlet and Violet subreddit to just like rail against Bax Caliber when nobody was asking for that. It's kind of my whole steez actually Josh. And there were plenty of people who went into the replies and they were like, I like it.

[00:13:29] We're in the right side of history. Yeah, that actually sounds like my replies. You were probably in there. I should have given it a closer look. No, I love Arctobacks. I love I even like Bax Caliber. Yeah, I mean, I'm not there yet. Hoss ass Pokemon.

[00:13:45] I don't know. Fridgeybacks obviously very cute. So sweet. And guess who's 52? It's Arctobacks. Arthur the Arctobacks only level 52. That's okay. We'll get there. Still work to be done. And everything else. The rest of the crew remain the same. Rouncy Skeledurge level 61. The Duke Pommat level 61.

[00:14:05] Lady Trish of Lavencia Tinkerton level 59. Fun in these locked battles like any of the gym leaders, I think. And then the fight with the fighting crew where you can't move the camera. And sometimes the opposing Pokemon is so small

[00:14:22] that you can't even see anything except the big Gigaton Hammer. Or like in the fight with the fighting type leader when they do retaliate. And for some reason, the camera's locked. So it doesn't do the full retaliate animation.

[00:14:36] So your camera just freezes for like 10 seconds before like Cherry Blossom petals will just start suddenly falling down this from the sky. Right. This game is just a fucking wreck. It's a wreck. We'll get into it.

[00:14:50] We go through which which gym leader made us do all the calisthenics. God, the psychic tulip psychic her her assistant. It was just broken emotional sympathy trip. Franny, whatever the fuck it was. Like the emotional spectrum training that's broken for me. And it was like it was fine.

[00:15:10] I got through it. But like the camera just broke. Yeah. So like all I saw was her assistant and just like a little like pink nipple. And the rest was just like a shred. Excuse me, who's pink nipple?

[00:15:22] Let's see if let's see if you will find it and we'll save it. We're not there yet. It's just a wreck. This game is just a wreck. There's two more people in the crew. It's Surjangles coma level 58. This is the biggest game franchise in the fucking world.

[00:15:38] And this is one of your main line AAA games. And it's just broken. And you're just like, ah, fuck it. You'll play it. Idiots. Well, look at us. We're playing it. I know. They're just spitting in our face. We're not going to stop. I like it.

[00:15:52] I think it's a good game. It's fine enough. It's better than I thought. And I'm glad that we've sorted out our level problem. Well, you made a new level problem for yourself. But I got my levels into an area where now the battles have started getting like challenging,

[00:16:05] which is fun. Cloudsire the Clouds are level 59. That's it. Okay, we're done. That's level check. Lots to do this week. Joshua. First, let's bang out these fucking gyms. Obviously, these were so over level for these things.

[00:16:28] We have to go take care of these psychic El Fornado was still pretty under leveled. This whole team. I kind of need to talk about. Let me see if I have this screen. Let's talk about the gym test. They send you out. They're like, okay, here's the thing.

[00:16:43] This is a calisthenics. Yeah, look, it's just fucking busted. It's like a rhythm game. Yeah, it's rhythm. Hell. Oh, wow. Your screen was that did not happen to me. And just look at the little nipple. It was just bouncing around the entire time.

[00:16:59] It's just this little pink nipple. Yeah, half of Tanner screen was just mysteriously not working. And so the nipple is just the top of meta champs head is all that you could see. It goes into split screen.

[00:17:11] But for some reason, the other half of the opponent's split screen was also split. So all you can see is this tiny little top half of this. Normally, you know, quite the meta champs head nipple surmountable.

[00:17:25] All that you have to do is make an emoticon response to dendros emotion. And it's like, get excited or like one of four emotion angry. She'll do it. You all have to do it too. But you will.

[00:17:39] I mean, you and the other people behind you never express yourself. Don Joey, we need to get in touch with like the Joey at the center of Don. Yeah, Joseph. Where's Joseph? We talked to Joseph. What happened to Joseph? The mama's sweet boy. Mine worked.

[00:17:54] Mine didn't, but I got through it. It sucked. And then you have to go fight to look to look to look is like a makeup influencer. She's Taylor Swift. They made her look exactly like Taylor. She also looks like Taylor Swift. That's right. Yeah.

[00:18:11] And for any Swifties who listen, I think that's a compliment. We're going to say that's a compliment. Please do not eradicate us off the face of the earth. Swifties don't say it. We've said it twice now. If you say it three times, then they get summoned.

[00:18:23] I'm not against you. I'm with you and I'm not opposed to you in any way. I like Taylor Swift. I have nothing against her. I like Travis Kelsey. I don't care. Leave me alone. I'm dispassionate about the whole situation. Take it or leave it. I don't care.

[00:18:37] They got this trainer. She's a beautiful like butterfly lady. She's got a very like, oh yeah, we face like Taylor Swift. She had the thing like the electric girly gym leader where she had these things on her outfit.

[00:18:50] And it's a weird flapping wings in this case instead of the magnum mites. And I want those. I want those also. What are they? Are they butterflies? Sentient costumes. It's like, yeah, what they would seem to be like move and react on their own.

[00:19:01] And they're the butterfly wings of like one of the Pokemon. Mothim. They look like Mothim wings. They were like Mothim wings. Yeah. She's got this beautiful Mothim wing outfit. She's like on all these calls. She's making decisions. She's girl bossing.

[00:19:18] She's got like two meta cham assistants and she's like, okay, I guess like on her phone when she walks in just sort of like curbs us like, sorry, I'm too busy to talk to you right now. Oh, you're the gym challenger. I'll be with you in a moment.

[00:19:31] Dendro said that I'm supposed to like pencil you in. Yeah. And she's like on the phone during the battle girl boss. She's got a Pokemon that I want to talk about. I need to talk about all but one of these Pokemon. Okay.

[00:19:44] Gardevoir, I don't need to comment on further, but I need to comment on the others. It sounds like she has four Pokemon and the two of us have something collectively to say about three of the Pokemon. Yeah. And I also have nothing to say about Gardevoir.

[00:19:57] It was just a normal Gardevoir. Yeah, we don't need to go down that path any further. But I have both a Sweetie and a Barfee in here. Oh, I have I have a Sweetie and a Barfee also. Wait, are they going to be synced up, though?

[00:20:07] That's the real question. On the count of three, let's say who our Sweetie is first. Ready? Okay. One, two, three. Feragiraffe. Well, nobody knows how to say it, but it's Feragiraffe or Feragiriffe. Sweetie. What a good job, Pokemon Company. Of course. Good job. And you know what?

[00:20:32] I like that they're just having fun with Dundun Sparse and now Feragiraffe. Yeah, having fun. I love it. Yeah, it just makes the back head consumes the front head and it has this determined the giraffe head has a determined look on its face.

[00:20:49] It's like a giraffe wearing a hoodie. The hoodie is sweet. The dumb chain chomp face remains cute. Longer neck, stronger legs. Very cute. Absolutely loved it. Yeah, great. Do you want to say on the count of three who our Barfee was? Yes. All right. One, two, three. Espathra.

[00:21:12] Well, how should we tackle this? Let's talk about Espathra first because mine has a secondary segment attached to it. Okay, that's troubling. Troubling. To hear. Espathra, I have seen these out in the wild. Gross. I just think it's gross. I hate them out in the wild. It's scary.

[00:21:30] It's like what? It's like a cassowary. I don't know. I like, I don't, I don't hate it. And you know, I hate Pokemon. You do hate a fair number of them. I think it's like kind of a fetching looking like Lady Gaga emu. No, it's not fetching.

[00:21:43] I just definitely don't think it's fetching. I'm surprised to hear you say that it's a Barfee. And I'm happy to come with you, but like, I don't know. I don't hate it. The eyes are terrifying. All these ruffles, like stupid color scheme. I just think it's ugly.

[00:22:00] I'm happy to come with you on it. I hate it too. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck Espartha. Espathra. It's the Spanish way pronouncing it for a Fendi. Okay, no, you're logging in. Have we not done for just before again? It just feels like it's well trodden ground.

[00:22:23] I'm sure we have. But now in like stunning like 8k, it's little bikini was. I don't know. It's just like it seemed sexier now. Didn't it? A lot of people seem to make Florges into like a mermaid. Well, it is kind of a mermaid. Very sexy mermaid.

[00:22:40] By that, do you mean the Pokemon company seems to make it into a mermaid? Yeah. Oh, this one's got a dick. Everyone involved is making it into a mermaid. Look at this. You can just send me your choice picks because like I don't have the special admin privileges

[00:22:53] that you do and I can't be bothered to even log in right now. Can I save it? Oh yeah, I can just save it. Save it to your archives. I'll need that for later. Do we think they put a diaper on her?

[00:23:08] Because I how would you even put a diaper on Florges? Let me let me search for you. Florges diaper. Oh wow. What do you think of that one? I sent you a nice big dick. It's weird. The decision they made on the dick, isn't it?

[00:23:24] Not the decision I would make. The placement is sort of confusing. Anatomically, there's a lot to work with and there's a lot of different ways that people can sort of interpret where things would go or go into a Florges. Here is an image.

[00:23:40] This is the only result that came up for a diaper. What am I looking at? Well, I can't tell you what I'm looking at. I have to explain. Is this your original art? Because it's not quite as a...

[00:23:52] Joshua, if you give me the runway, I'm happy to explain what you're looking at. I think I've given you too much runway. I sent you the only Google result that came back for the search term Florges diapers. Okay? Yeah. This is what you asked me for. One image.

[00:24:09] It's a confusing image. It's black and white. It's line drawing. Like someone drew it in preview. Florges is like shopping and sort of laughing dismissively at... What is that? Is it like a Golisopod? What is that? I think it's a Golisopod.

[00:24:23] It's like a crawdad Pokemon of some sort. Don't you think? Cloncher maybe? Or what's the other one? Klautzer? Hard to say whatever it is. But anyway... What are they even doing? If you were, Joshua... Okay.

[00:24:35] If you were given the level of privilege and access that I've been given on furaffinity.net, you'd be able to see this link and see that the image is actually just an illustration of a very long story. Oh. That's what it's written in the description of this image.

[00:24:52] Very long story. Let me guess. Does it conclude with Florges wearing a diaper? No, but it's sort of like a pay pig situation where I think the Cloncher is being publicly humiliated by carrying... I have only scanned it.

[00:25:07] By carrying home the diapers of Florges for adult sexual purposes. Okay. You're looking at it, you're like, how is this X rated? But there's a lot of humiliation and kind of kink fetish stuff involved in there too. Interesting.

[00:25:26] That's where we're at with Fur Affinity this week, really digging into some of the kind of darker side of Florges, I think. Yeah, I would say so. And I dug into the darker side of Florges this week with Lady Beth and her incredible new ability. What was that?

[00:25:46] Armor Cannon! Ooh, that sounds very gruesome. Oh, it hits so hard. It's like, I think it's 120 damage and 100% hit rate. Damn. Yeah. 5pp? Excuse me? Is it 5pp? Or you get 10pp? 5pp on that one, yeah. I, on the dark side of things, also used...

[00:26:07] My Arctobacs has a dark, dark sided Terra Stalation. Ooh, that's kind of fun. Yeah, and it's got crunch. So I did that to try to crunch the Florges, but the Florges killed him. He was only level like 48 or something.

[00:26:25] So then I had to just bring out the big guns, take her out. Yeah, yeah. Who was the big guns? Tell me who the big guns were. I was using... After this break! Wow. Mid battle. I kind of knew it was happening, but I couldn't stop.

[00:26:39] Kind of saw that landmine in front of me, but here I am. Legless. Yeah, like blown up. Joshua! Tanner Yua. Bug catchers. Welcome back. I beat her. Yes, after we beat her, I think it's after this one, I think Rika introduces us to Poppy,

[00:27:02] who's a literal baby and in the Elite Four. First of all, you're like, Rika introduced us to Poppy, as if Rika and you were close friends. Oh, Rika I love, because she looks like La Rue, who's my queen. Is La Rue the one who sang Bulletproof?

[00:27:20] Yeah, I'm in my La Rue-naissance right now. That's a hell of a song. Yeah. Trying to bring her back. All of her albums are great. Rika is not a known element to me, but apparently we've met her. Yeah, we've met her! A few times. Okay.

[00:27:33] And she inflicts this child on us. She's in the Elite Four. I think Rika's in it too, I can't remember. She's now introduced us to a few people, but now this week she introduced us to a toddler. A baby toddler. A toddler is in the Elite Four.

[00:27:47] How would the child have had enough time to even get to the Elite Four? Like a savant, I guess, right? You know, in her tiny child life. Like four at the most, maybe, years old. It's a pretty challenging circumstance they've put in front of us.

[00:28:07] Poppy, let me look. Let me look up her age. Does it say how old she is? She's nine. Oh, nine? She does not look nine. She looks three. Yeah, nine is wrong. She does not come off as nine at all.

[00:28:21] The Pokemon wiki, fandom wiki, God bless you tireless volunteers, but I don't know if I trust the volunteers at the fandom wiki. Bulbapedia says nine as well. Okay, well, then I trust it. She doesn't look nine, she looks three.

[00:28:35] Oh, I guess on the Indigo disc there will be a line where Poppy says, I'm nine years old, that's old enough to go to Naranja. I guess. Or Uva Academy if I wanted to. So she hasn't even been run through the fucking academy?

[00:28:49] Maybe she's like a Nepo baby. Yeah, it must be. She's like someone's kid. Probably fucking Clavels. Yeah. He's so crooked anyway. We saw a lot of Clive this week too. Yeah, a lot of Clive. No, we're not there yet. We got to do Monta Nevera. Monta Nevera!

[00:29:05] So then we have to climb this fucking Glaciata mountain with a piece of poop following us most of the way. At least one of us. And we get to the top and there's a beautiful little Christmas village up here. I loved Monta Nevera. Yeah, beautiful.

[00:29:19] It was like veil. There's like lots of little candles. It's kind of spooky but like inviting at the same time. It's like a ghost type town. Yeah, it's like a ghost party. The whole town's ghost. Yeah, it's a ghost party. Mountainous lavender town.

[00:29:33] It's a really tiny town except for most of the town is a huge stage. Because the gym leader is Rhyme and she's a DJ. But we can't get into that yet.

[00:29:43] We have to do the gym test which is that we need to warm the crowd up and get them hyped. Here's what I want gym test to be. I like this gym test. Not a broken rhythm game. Fair enough.

[00:29:55] I want them to be double battles, which is what this was. It was like get on stage and do like three double battles. Great. One of which again is against a child. And the last double battle is MC Sledge who's like this stoner guy.

[00:30:07] Then we get to the main act which is DJ Rhyme. Yeah, she's cool. Gym leader Rhyme, the MC of RIP, which I like that qualifier. And she's got a cool look.

[00:30:19] She's got a cool look and at some point she's like doing a concert and there's like a bunch of tombstones in the crowd. And you realize that it's that tombstone dog Pokemon. I love the reveal. They all start to like surface.

[00:30:31] She's like, oh, we partied so hard we rose the dead. It was like, that's rad. What you just said was rad. What's all this noise I'm hearing? This crowd so loud it could wake the dead. Cool thing to say.

[00:30:41] And like her finale is all the Grievards rise up. Yes. She had a pretty devastating like diss with this guy who she was fighting while we were like getting prepared for our battle with her. And he goes, listen up Rhyme, your reign ends here.

[00:30:57] You're going to get rung up by this pro cashier. And then she goes. Pro cashier. Pro cashier? Well, I'm about to check out must have got your rhymes on deep discount. I was like, holy shit. And then she says, please, you think you can step to my game?

[00:31:13] Fool, I got rhyme right there in my name. I'm a specter from which there is no protector and victory onto me. You will render when the crowd sees you are a mere pretender. That one's a little clunky. Harder. Yeah, that one's tough. Maybe she could deliver it well.

[00:31:29] You didn't deliver it well. That's fine. You're not a rapper. Maybe they should add some fucking voice acting to these games at this point. Yeah, Pokemon game. And then I don't have to make it up. Do it, Pokemon Company, you cowards. I'll do it for you.

[00:31:40] I'll do all the voices. Dead or alive, let's make this a vibe. That's a good one. She says that right before you battle. I'm not afraid to do accents. I'll do them. You probably should be afraid of doing accents.

[00:31:50] And I don't think that I would recommend you don't do any accents. OK. I'm being told. Sorry, Pokemon Company, I'm being told by my attorney I shouldn't be doing accents. Except we said the Italians, the Italians and people from Long Island as we established. That's fine.

[00:32:07] Let's finish a conversation that I started earlier and neglected to finish, which is I had a bug type Pokemon on my team called Rallor. Right. When I got to the top of the hill right before this gym, I fought a guy and that guy helped

[00:32:22] Rallor evolve into Rapsca, who's still bug. Right. Yeah. So I got through this gym no problem. I use my bug type moves to kill her. I had Skeletor just shadow or hex Willow Wisp and then hex everybody.

[00:32:37] But I will say this, even though I was still slightly over leveled for her, her opener is Mimikyu and Bannette, and she does an opener of Shadow Sneak and Sucker Punch.

[00:32:50] So both of my Pokemon were not able to attack on the first round, which I think if I was closer to her levels would have been more devastating than it was. But it was like a good move. It's a respete.

[00:33:02] Now let's talk about Rapsca, because while Rapsca did carry me through this gym, Rapsca is a challenging Pokemon because Rallor was certainly not a guy. It was a bug. Yeah, that's OK. He was a guy and he woke up a beetle.

[00:33:19] I'm pretty sure Rapsca is like a psychic ghost, and I'm pretty sure that the pile of poop has become a floating psychic ghost eye. It's like sentient. And that the beetle has almost become like a dead husk attached to it. It no longer rolls the poop around.

[00:33:35] It floats like a ghost, and the eye is kind of the Eye of Sauron. I mean, that seems like an upgrade for his lifestyle. He doesn't have to push it anymore. It did help me get through this gym, you know, and I'm willing to, obviously with Gregor

[00:33:51] Samsa, more than anyone, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But is Rapsca still a guy? Maybe he's more of a guy. Maybe he's more of a guy because he's like, he's pure human psychic energy. And he has like wizened whiskers. Yeah, that's true.

[00:34:09] I think that's what it looks like, is that he's got facial hair. I'm saying the bug has sort of become ancillary and now he's just like a pure psychic being. But if Gregor Samsa, if we can get Kafka S for a second.

[00:34:21] If Gregor Samsa originally was a guy who then woke up in a dung beetle's body. Okay, even if he evolves, does his essence not remain the same that he is at in his heart of hearts and in his soul a guy?

[00:34:35] Sorry, I couldn't hear much of what you were saying because I'm on the Bulbapedia page. I'm trying to philosophize here. And I don't know when this happens, but apparently Rapsca can grow a baby inside of the piece of poop. No, how? How would that be coming into play?

[00:34:53] Are you still on Fur Affinity? No, I'm on Bulbapedia and I won't read the two blocks of text above it. But under the biology section, there's an image of Rapsca with like a glowing poop fetus inside of the thing that it's rolling up. Oh, and this is canon.

[00:35:08] The caption is, an infant inside Rapsca's ball. So that's definitely a guy. Whoa, what? If it can create humans, it's like the original guy. Is this in the anime or something? Or why would they even be covering this? He's like the progenitor of guys.

[00:35:27] We all come from Pokemon and we're all coming from Rapsca eggs. That's challenging to think about. Maybe that's what Kafka was eventually going to get to. Had they let him finish the book the way he wanted to. With a sequel. Yeah.

[00:35:41] If he had gotten to do a sequel to Metamorphosis. All right. All right, well, you know, sit on that, bug catchers. Think about that one. Smoked him. Just mopped up in here. Embarrassment. I did like that the Toxtricity, its terraform was ghost.

[00:35:58] And the ghost looks like the Marowak's ghost sprite from Lavender Town in Red and Blue. I like that. That's cool. That's a nice Easter egg. Nice touch. A little further up the mountain, Joshua, especially if you jump on the back of Coridon.

[00:36:14] I got so lost trying to get up to Glaciato's Peak, which is where this last gym is. I just felt like a complete idiot. Also, I'll say this about Coridon's rock climb ability. It's like pretty fucking spotty. It's very spotty.

[00:36:30] When you jump at the side of a mountain and hit B to rock climb up the side of the mountain, I would say 75% of the time, Coridon will instead slide down the side of the mountain.

[00:36:40] And it's hard to even tell if it's like, oh, does the slope need to be on some certain incline? Is this slight discoloration supposed to be indicative of that it's ice so we can't climb it? I don't know. Just one of those little hiccups.

[00:36:55] Hemmed and hawed, and I did manage to get up there. And then I got lost several times going from the gym test entrance area to finding where the actual gym battle arena is. And this is not really a town. It's just it's like a chalet.

[00:37:12] No, it's just the gym battle arena and the gym and a little checkpoint where you have to go do the second type of Pokemon gym test that I find acceptable. I liked this one, which is pure novelty. Don't make me do something that feels like a chore.

[00:37:28] Either make me do battles or make me do something that's totally new to me. And they did something totally new to me this week, which I thought was pretty fun. Oh, me too. No, sorry. It wasn't fun. It was OK. It was all right.

[00:37:39] I mean, it wasn't as good as like sliding down the mountain with with your shield in a Zelda Twilight Princess, but similar kind of vibe. It's certainly not as good as sliding down the race course against the penguin in Super Mario 64. No, not at all.

[00:37:55] That is kind of the mood it's trying to capture. Yeah, you have to go down the slopes on Meriden. Yeah, go through some gates and hit certain posts. And you do that. And then you do the battle. And this battle was nothing.

[00:38:11] I mean, I have so much fighting and fire on my team that an ice one. They even and my levels were like pretty close at this point, but there was just nothing. I can't even remember what the fucking what's the name of the gym leader?

[00:38:25] Oh, I actually liked her. She was kind of cool. I thought this was anti climactic for a final gym, though. Yeah, it was a little weird. Ice is not difficult to deal with. They're famously not difficult and fragile. She was not difficult. Groucho. Yeah, Groucho. Groucho.

[00:38:42] She's like a shy girl. Yeah, her look was fine. I mean, in general, I think all of these gym leaders had pretty good looks, except Brassius, who I hate because he's a no talent hack. And his art is embarrassing. Really coming out of the gates against Brassie.

[00:38:56] Maybe it's improving now that he's got cookie. They are Boliva as his muse. But I'm not going to go back to artisan to find out hammered this stupid ice type lady with all of my tough Pokemon. Frozmoth still looking great. God love the design on that thing.

[00:39:14] So elegant beer tick, not elegant Titan, which I also very much liked and Altaria. Oh yeah, I like Titan. Yeah, I like Titan. I saw some more titles out there. She's got one that's like her buddy. They make great sounds. I like the look.

[00:39:36] I like to title and Titan. I think they're both cute. Yeah, grown on me. I like the little I like soft pink and the soft blue. It's nice. Very soothing to look at.

[00:39:46] Then after we get all eight gyms done, Nimona and the like champion of champions, whatever her name was. La Primera. La Primera. Come in there like, hey, you did it. Congratulations. You're ready to go take on the elite four. It's like great.

[00:40:00] I've already met all of them, and one of them is a literal baby. Yeah, I'm not like feeling too intimidated. Shaking in my boots here.

[00:40:08] Also, La Primera at one point was like, Nimona is finally excited to have someone at her like caliber to challenge within the like champions league. And it's like, what do you mean her caliber?

[00:40:20] Every time I face off with her, I've crushed her with like usually one Pokemon and usually my worst Pokemon, which is a car. You're completely over leveled. And also she's not using her like champion team. She says. She says, I'm going to go.

[00:40:34] She's clearly articulated multiple times that she's not given us her best yet. I got a prediction for how that battle is going to go, Josh. And I think it's going to go in favor of Esteban. Oh, motto. It's going to go your way, you think? Yep.

[00:40:49] OK, let's go face off against this fighting type star crew. You've tried to take this base several times. It seems like this was a challenging battle. Even though like 30 Pokemon star crew shit, you know, sending out your Pokemon to do battles. Yeah, that was even a little challenging.

[00:41:03] I had to refresh it every single vending machine. You've got a fighting problem. Sorry, this was this was last week or two weeks ago when I first tried it. Oh, right. But now your levels are unhinged. Yeah, it was I was unstoppable. I was an unstoppable force.

[00:41:17] This was the not the prettiest, but the design of this base was probably the most interesting. You would like follow a winding path and they're throwing out primates and hallucinogens and pessimists and et cetera, et cetera. Yep.

[00:41:34] I'm yearning to have a psychic type, which I don't have coverage, but I did have plenty of fairy moves to be using against them. But the battle with the infernal Eerie was a real battle. And she's got fifty fives and fifty six.

[00:41:53] So, yeah, I was right in there. It's not super easy. And then her fucking like reverberant is also just like tough. So the reverberant for me should have been more challenging. Half star mobile.

[00:42:07] The calf star mobile kept using shift gears and it allowed me to pop off to outrages from my combo. That got it down so low that by the time it started using actual attack moves, I just killed it.

[00:42:23] But I thought the calf star mobile was going to be harder, but she just like made a tactical error bumping up its speed too much. She's got toxic, grope, pessimism, annihilate Lucario and reverberant.

[00:42:35] And of course, I always pop out Donna's car first, get my two toxic spikes out. Got it. That works on almost everyone except Lucario didn't work on for some reason. Because it's steel type. It's part steel type.

[00:42:45] Oh, and reverberant didn't work on because it's still dumb, but it worked on everyone else. And it works really well. Everyone else. Well, it wouldn't have worked on toxic croak because it's poison. Toxic croak was the first one out. So it wouldn't have worked on. Right.

[00:42:58] So toxic croak put up a good fight. It took out Trish. And then I swung in there with Como and Trish were like Como and Tinkerton were my main two on this because I resurrected Tinkerton while Como was out.

[00:43:13] But then I brought Tinkerton out against Passimian and then Passimian killed it also annihilate the hell of a design. Love what they've done there. It's like a ghost fighting. It's ghost fighting and it's lore.

[00:43:27] I think it's Pokedex entry is also that it's a primate that if I recall correctly, a primate that got so fucking pissed that it like died. And this is like it's still angry, reanimated like corpse. Yeah, that's the plot of 13 ghosts with Shaggy from Scooby Doo. Matthew Lillard.

[00:43:52] I'm sure everyone has seen that. You've referenced 13 ghosts on the show before. That's a good movie. I still haven't seen it. It's the plot. Annihilate. The 13 ghosts are so angry that they have their their spirits are still attached to this earth stuck in a house.

[00:44:07] Yeah, I know all about the house that they're stuck in because you've told me about it last time. Why don't you watch the fucking movie and then you'll know all about it. I'm going to clear time in my movie list to watch 13 ghosts. Why not?

[00:44:18] You would say it's that good. No, but I would say it's an hour and a half of your life and you'll be a richer, fuller person and have something to relate with one of your closest friends on. Fine. I'll put it on the list.

[00:44:30] I can't guarantee when it will happen. It's got first of all, Tony Shalhoub's in it. Matthew Lillard's in it. I don't care about Matthew Lillard being in it, but Tony Shalhoub. Now that's interesting. And a bunch of other people. I will make the Spotify question.

[00:44:46] The poll for this episode will be for the bug catchers to say whether or not Joshua watched 13 goes. OK, well, I was going to ask them if it's any good, but I guess I'll ask them if I should watch it.

[00:44:56] But we all know where that how that election is. Good. It's not worth watching because it's good. It's worth watching because it's a cultural moment. Because I need to support Matthew Lillard and Tony Shalhoub. Thank you. OK. Beter I beat her. I beat her. I beat her.

[00:45:16] And let's take a little time to what's the unraveling here? The rest of the story. So so these so these kids were all they were on an anti bullying campaign and then they became the bullies, except one of them is here.

[00:45:31] And she was like a cool girl who bullied them. Then Eerie let her into that. What they were doing was not bullying. What they were doing was like, I don't know, like scared straight. Like they were like it was motivated. Yeah, it's scared straight. That's it.

[00:45:47] It was motivating for these kids and a lot of them got a lot out of it. And who am I to like interfere with that? You know? Yeah. Like live your truth, live your best life, you people. But we did kind of fuck with that.

[00:46:00] Clive is here and he's like, OK, this is great. These kids will all end up back in the academies. Uvo and Alanja. Yeah, that's it. Get a call then. And then so Clive's like my work here is done. I think never reveals that it's Clive.

[00:46:14] Well, and like has a conversation with Cassapia. Cassapia then calls. She's come around on Clive slash Clavel. It's like we job well done boys. Cassapia is like good job. You've defeated the Star Clan, but for one. The big secret boss.

[00:46:30] There's a big secret boss of the Star Clan. Who's challenged us to a battle at midnight in like the town square in Mesa Goza. And that boss is me. I'm Cassapia. Oh, who would have thought? Cassapia is secretly the big boss. And now you've already done this battle.

[00:46:44] I haven't. So we'll save it for next week. Yes. But this is the this is the big battle, right? I think so. Is this going to let me upgrade my reverie room? I mean, if you become the new boss, I think if you kill. Happy to. Cassapia then.

[00:46:58] Yeah, I'm happy to wear wear skin. Fine. Yeah. Well, I'll look forward to doing that. We've learned that that works from in D&D. So that's it for us then, Joshua. This week. That's everything we ticked off the list this week.

[00:47:13] But next week, I think we'll go face off against Cassapia. We will close out or see what comes next for Starfall Street and the Path of Legends. So we will do the showdown with Cassapia. The showdown with Billy, a.k.a. Arvin. Yeah, Arwin.

[00:47:29] And presuming we can't follow those threads to their full conclusion quite yet, we will do the showdown with the elite four and we will find out what that tiny baby poppy has in store for us. That's on the agenda for all of us next week.

[00:47:41] Those two loose threads, those two big like yarn threads. See what's going on with the end games. Great, Joshua. That sounds good. That sounds much more reasonable than three gyms and a fucking star elite star base. Yes, please. Thanks, Greg. There's other games I'd like to play.

[00:47:58] Joshua, bug catchers. Thank you for joining us this week. This has been experience. Shared Spoke more podcast. My name has been set. It's a tight tenor. It's a tight tenor. I think that's it. A.k.a. Tanner Greenberg. And I'm joined as always by my co-host Fjallorjus. Fjallorjus.

[00:48:15] A.k.a. Joshua Fjallstad. Please do rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts and everywhere that you rate and review podcasts and do follow the show everywhere that you follow podcasts. And you follow us at the XP share pod on Instagram threads X wherever.

[00:48:33] That's our name in places. Yeah, it's always that except for Reddit where it is Reddit dot com slash R slash bug catchers and merch. That one is XP share pod dot com. Please don't get too pulled into to Reddit and don't end up on like the violent Scarlet

[00:48:50] Subreddits. I'm not part of the community, but it shows up in my algorithm. Follow the same dark path that Josh went down. A lot of bad opinions in there about specs caliber. All right, Joshua, I will see you next week. But catchers, I will see you next week.

[00:49:04] Until then, I will say hasta la vista. Hasta la vista. Yep. Thank you. Adios. Adios. Alola. Alola. Whatever the opposite of Konichiwa was. Konichiwa was. Konponwa. And bottom of the episode to you. Thank you for remembering all of this. Goodbye. And smell you later.