You got a good shot on it, Tron? Like you can see the whole thing, right? [There's absolutely no chance that "it" isn't the giant crystal spire growing out of the ground behind John. Or one of them, anyway, Azalea's from the looks of things.]

[As for John himself, he's dressed a little differently than normal and floating high enough in the air to be on level with the top of the tower several yards behind him. Just by looking at the overly large hammer in his hand, it's probably easy enough to guess what he's about to try and do here. At an affirmative sounding buzzing from the camera itself, John flashes a thumbs up and a goofy smile.]

Alrighty then let's do this then! Let's see if I can be a one hit wonder!!

[Laughing, he turns around and zooms closer to his target, pulling his hammer back until he's right in front of the crystal. He swings with perhaps surprising ferocity and with a loud 8ANG! the crystal starts to crack. But wait, that's not all. the force of the impact sets the dice in the back of the hammer spinning and a roulette momentarily appears in midair, spinning wildly. Of course a hammer that ridiculous looking was going to have some kind of gimmick to it. Of course.]

[>16 Sugar High]

[We're not left wondering what that roll could mean for long, luckily. As the crystal continues to crack and shatter from the impact, a strange, sugary transformation takes place. It...it sure is raining rock candy crystal in Azalea now. That's definitely a thing that just happened.]

Hehehe!!! So how was that?! [He turns back to the camera, hefting his hammer over his shoulders.] Pretty sweet, huh?

[John, you and Tron are probably the only two laughing at that...]

[As per the norm, it appears as though John's Rotom is handling the camera today. John's laying on his stomach in his backyard, idly poking at an cheerful looking Goomy Bloober with his finger. The Pokémon makes a weird sort of giggle, wiggling like a plate of jell-o.]

[Though it seems like that's not the only new friend John's managed to make. There are a few more slowly oozing their way over his back, one chewing on one of his shoelaces, and several more just milling around his yard in general. A male Jellicent and Altaria can be seen several feet away as well, apparently trying to keep the little visitors damp and happy with rain dance. It's working fairly well, from the looks of things.]

[It's also keeping a certain excitable Omanyte happy as well. Rain dance AND lots of new slimy buddies? Best.]

Happy little blobs aren't they? I like them. [He tickles the one in front of him, eliciting more burbly giggles from the little slimemon.] I kind of just want to keep this whole little herd that stumbled into our backyard earlier this morning. [A beat.] Or would glob be more appropriate? A glob of Bloobers, yeah I think that sounds better. If that IS actually what they're called, that is.

Assuming nothing weird happens and they DO end up staying with use permanently, I'm kind of looking forward to getting to train one blind. Should be fun. [He would...not be surprised if this was some more weird-ass temporary bullshit. Upset, yes. But not surprised.] Though is anybody else having trouble getting information out of them? I had some of my psychic types try and bridge the communication gap but it ended up being a no-go.

Hmm... [He tugs at his Bloober's face a little bit. Because this will clearly get the darn thing to reveal all of its secrets.]

Oh, right! [He lets go of his Bloober and looks up at the camera.] Happy early Valentine's Day! I hope everyone has a...goo-d one.

[EH. EH? GET IT? GOO-D? You know, because Bloobers?]

[Judging by the dim light, it's well into sunset by now and John's laying on a lounge chair on what can only be the deck of the S.S. Anne. On his chest lays a small Dunsparce, wearing a tiny and absolutely adorable light blue party hat. John's idly petting its back, eliciting a few content sighs from the little snake every now and again.]

I know we have a starter appreciation day, but there's nothing quite like the anniversary of your arrival to get you thinking about the Pokémon that started it all. Like really think about them, I mean. Not just kind of acknowledging that they were your first Pokémon.

Or maybe I am just sentimental, who knows. But I really think there's something kind of special about starters. Even if there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to why you were paired up together. Either way, Colonel Sassacre here and I have been together three years as of today. [The Dunsparce flitters his wings a little, maybe giving the camera the smallest of smiles.] Though it feels like it's been way longer than that, honestly. Time flies when you're having fun, right?

[He beams at the camera.]

So tell me about your starters. What was yours? What sort of things have you done together? I dunno, just brag about them if you want. Or we can just talk about whatever, you know I am honestly not too picky. There's just only so long I can appreciate complete silence, personally. But this chair is way too comfy and the breeze feels way too nice to go back inside.

[He's feeling chatty again, apparently. And also lazy. Though what else is new on either of those fronts, really?]

On that note, if you haven't done the elite battle with Blue or Claire to get your S.S. Anne pass, I highly recommend doing so. Just saying. Totally worth it.

So did anybody know that it's possible for Pokémon to be deaf?

[While John looks more or less fine, when he speaks there's a definite sort of half-squeaky grogginess to his voice that suggests he's only just recently gotten it back. Someone was pretty damn sick over New Year's (on his deathbed, one would think, the way he carried on) and has only just recently gotten over it. But at least his nose finally stopped running and he's done coughing. His lost voice just has yet to find its way back to him entirely.]

[He's sitting on the floor of his living room, leaning back against the couch. He's not looking at the camera, though. Instead, he's smiling somewhat fondly at a cheerful-looking Gothita playing with a squiddle doll a few feet away from him. She's chewing on one of the tentacles, giggling a little with her back to John.]

I feel like it really shouldn't be so surprising. I just never really stopped to think about it being a Thing That Could Happen, you know? [He turns his attention to the camera, finally.]

Anyway, so how was everyone's New Year? I missed ringing it in, myself.

[Time to play catch-up since he's been out of the loop for like a week now and fuck checking all the network backlog.]

Everyone John has spoken to on a regular-enough basis to at least know their names and be on good terms with will be getting a bag of made-from-scratch baked goods. It includes gingerbread people, sugar cookies with festive sprinkles, double chocolate chunk cookies, and a candy cane. Note: the Dangan House will, instead, get a giant tin full of the same baked goods (and maybe it will also have some hand-made fudge and chocolates from Rose, I need to double check with Ki when she wakes up) to be shared amongst everyone that lives there. Yes, even those of you that he's never actually talked to. He didn't want to be a jackass and only send things to the ones he does know when you all live in a house together. Naegi, he's counting on you to make sure that everyone shares these. Don't let him down, bro.

The following people will additionally recieve...

( tis the season )

[John seems somehow distracted when he turns on the video today. He's sitting at the kitchen table in his house, chin propped in his hand and eyes on a Pokéball he's rolling idly on the table in front of him.]

You ever wonder what it is that determines what happens to a Pokémon after its trainer goes back home? I mean, I've thought about it before but never really thought about it if that makes any sense? This is really the first time I've inherited one that wasn't from a friend so it just got me thinking.

Granted, it originally belonged to someone who was... [He pauses, seeming almost hesitant to finish that sentence. Or perhaps unsure of how he wants to end it.] ...a friend. At...one point in time... [He trails off, brow furrowing as he stops rolling the ball around.] So maybe it has less to do with Eridan and more to do with her.

[He leans his chair back on two legs, picking the ball up and passing it back and forth between his hands, finally looking at the camera.]

So yeah. Anybody have any good conspiracy theories on the matter? I'm curious.

[The feed opens up to what is presumably a hotel room, but it's really kind of hard to tell with how much the camera is jostling around. Is that a person? Yeah that's a person, but they don't seem to be paying attention to the camera. There's a static-y sort of giggle and a Rotom's face flashes briefly across the screen. Well that explains that.]

Tron! Come on now, dude, I know you're excited but nobody can see anything if you keep moving around like that. [The figure turns out to be John, who has moved across the room to grab hold of the whirring and giggling device. For a moment, he fixes the screen with a relatively stern look (for John, anyway). It's clearly meant for the Pokémon inside the device, not any of the viewers.]

Caaaalllmmmm. Brrrrzapp!! Good.

[John smiles and lets the device go once more. This time, the image stays still. Yup, that's a hotel room alright. Scattered about the room are a ridiculous number of brightly colored plush toys, one of which is currently having its tentacles chewed on by an Omanyte. Remember that guy? The one from the toilet? Yeah, he's still around apparently. A Lopunny, Lampent, and a Froslass are also visible; the former two chittering happily over a couple of the magnetic plush cephalopods, while the latter drifts lazily around the room, almost seeming bored.]

[But more importantly, there's also a fair-sized pile of eggs next to the couch.]

So I told myself I was only going to breed a couple of my ghosts this time but I may have ended up getting just a little overzealous in the end. [He laughs and shrugs.] Anyway, I need to start putting a little extra money away so I'm selling all of them for P3000 each. Except for the Snorunts, Goletts, and Rotoms, which are only 2000 since they have little to no egg moves. I will be sending out the full list of what I have as well as egg moves in a minute because I will be here all day if I try to verbally list off some of these. If you have any questions about the species themselves or parental temperament or anything like that, I will of course be happy to answer.

I think that about cov-- oh wait! One more thing real quick. Kind of sort of related, but I was talking with my friend Aradia the other day and we were thinking about maybe putting together some kind of ghost club. You know like... maybe get together every once in a while and go check out haunted houses or something. Just a thought, figured I would throw it out there to see if anybody would be interested in that sort of thing.

[He beams and flashes a thumbs up to the camera.]

Tron, if you would please!

Rrrzzzttt!!

[The feed clicks off and a few moments later, a text is sent out with the full list of eggs and egg moves.]

((ooc: There are still plenty of eggs left to be claimed, so have at them if you want.))

action for rose:
( Read more... )

---

video:
[The feed opens up to a view of... a toilet. But it's not the toilet that's interesting, but rather the Omanyte swimming in very tiny circles inside the bowl. Despite the rather confined space, the little thing seems to be happy as a clamperl, occasionally looking up at the camera and waving its tentacles with a happy sort of gurgle.]

[Eventually John's voice can be heard from behind the camera.]

I felt like this kind of qualifies as a "pics or it didn't happen" moment. Like... okay how often is it that you wake up and find an Omanyte using your toilet as a kiddie pool? Would anybody have believed me if I tried telling them about this later? I think not.

[The Omantye stops circling and blows some bubbles in the water.]

I am kind of thinking the little guy missed the memo about the whole rampaging thing though because the worst he's done so far is splash some water on the floor. And let's face it: that is not even remotely threatening. Even so, I am not sure I want to try and take him out of there...

[He had an... interesting experience with a Kabuto the first night following the seance. Note to self: angry Kabutos make for really shitty hats.]

Though I will admit I am somewhat baffled as to how he got in here in the first place. He's too big to have-- ah. [He seems to have something of a light bulb moment and, just as the Omanyte began to crawl out of the toilet, John turns the camera to himself. He looks somewhat exasperatedly unamused.] Dave, I swear this had better not be your idea of a prank. Because if so, zero out of five stars, this is lame even by your poor sta--AHHHAHAHAHAHA! That tickles, stop!!

[The view jostles wildly as John fumbles the gear, laughing loudly, before it falls to the floor with a clatter and cuts out entirely.]

[The feed turns on to a view of what is clearly the inside of a clothing store, judging by all the colorful display racks scattered about. From somewhere off screen, there are two male voices.]

I still can't believe you picked that. It's like exactly the same thing Rose put you in. You have to admit you're basically just fueling that fire. Making it roar high and shit. She'll remind you. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Are you blind or do you just need to take your shades off for a minute? This is nothing like that lacy Goth Lollipop or whatever it's called style that Rose put me in. It's much simpler! Do you see any frills on this? I sure don't.

Point is, similar dress style. I warned you. All I'm saying.

Wrong. But whatever we are both ready so let's do this. Casey, camera please!

[There's a squeak from the Lopunny operating the camera as the frame shifts, revealing two teenage boys wearing things that clearly came off racks not meant for them. This is exactly what you wanted to see today, right? Boys in dresses? Of course it was.]

[To the left stands Dave, whose hair is still as brightly pink and as in need of a trim as it was a week ago. It falls past his ears, and has been swept to the left side of his face. He's wearing a long, dark red dress which covers his chest but leaves his shoulders bare. When he moves just right, you can see a slit up the side. All in all, it pretty much neutralizes the harder lines of his body and proving two things. One: Dave can actually pull of androgynous pretty damn well. And two: he takes after his mom more than anybody probably thought.]

[Next to him stands John, and it's one of those moments where you can really tell just how short the kid actually is. Because Dave has a good half a foot on him and somehow the contrast between John's stockier frame and Dave's lankier one only exaggerates this difference. His dress is a simple light blue pinafore dress that falls to his knees. Under the dress is a long-sleeved, white dress shirt with a baby doll collar tied together with a dark blue ribbon. He's managed to (somewhat) tame his hair, adorning it with a light blue headband to match the dress.]

So here's the deal. John seems to think he pulls this off better. We all know he's way wrong.

I think you mean "we all know John is way right." Fixed it for you.

Spoilers: You're totally wrong.

It's astounding, how wrong you are about everything today. Just wow, I did not know it was possible for one person to be so wrong, so many times, in such a short period.

[Before Dave gets a chance to retort or either of them gets the chance to explicitly say what the point of all this was, the feed ends. But surely the point got across: who makes a better girl?]

((ooc: probably goes without saying, but red is Dave and blue is John. Responses will come from both.))

[When the feed clicks on, it's to a close up shot of a Shedinja floating inside what appears to be a hotel room. The ghost is just staring blankly at the screen, neither moving nor giving any other sort of indication that it's alive or that it really had any reason for apparently deciding to turn the gear on.]

[Just. Staring.]

[It's probably kind of unnerving and the worst part is that this goes on for a good twenty minutes before something else finally happens.]

Ugh, Phoebe did you hide my gear somewhere again? It was cute and kind of funny like the first maybe...three times? But that's really starting to wear off, sorry to say. Jeez, where is everyone it's like a gravey--

[John's voice can be heard in the background, and just as he wonders to himself where all his Pokémon went, his feet can be seen in the background behind the Shedinja. He sighs.]

Well that explains where everyone went at least. [The neon green argyle sock-clad feet approach the bug ghost and the camera.] Exos, what are you doing over here...oh. Ugh, not you too! Jesus what does a guy have to do, I swear... [The camera jostles as John, still mumbling to himself, picks the 'gear up. He redirects the camera to his own face, looking a little exasperated.]

Sorry about that. Exos is...well okay I have no idea what the fuck he was trying to accomplish there, if anything at all. But since this is already on, may as well make some kind of point here I guess. Umm, let's see...

Tell me about your favorite type of Pokémon. Or your favorite species, anything like that. Feel free to gush about your team and the things you have accomplished together, I don't mind. It's actually kind of fun to hear what other people have to say about their companions.

Here, I will even go first. Ghost types are my favorite and thanks to Bro Strider, I recently finished my collection of grim, grinning ghosts. I now have at least one of every ghost-type evolutionary line. My favorite species is Haunter. Mostly for nostalgia reasons but Haunters have the added benefit of just being pretty awesome in general.

[John is seated on a piano bench, though he's facing away from the piano at the moment, using the instrument as sort of a backrest instead. In his lap sits a small stack of papers and the look on his face clearly says that he is all business today.]

[Brace yourselves.]

So I'm not sure why none of us thought to clear this up sooner, but it's come to my attention that there are a few things concerning the people from my universe that really should be addressed to avoid further confusion. Mainly: alternate universe selves, who's related to who, and how a sixteen year old can be a grandparent.

I have mentioned it to a few people already but basically it all boils down to something called ectobiology. To put it as simply as I can, ectobiology is the science of exploiting time loops to create babies out of paradox ghost slime. None of us were born in the typical human sense of the word, I created us all in a lab and then we went back in time on meteors and crash landed on Earth. And it's all thanks to a game called SBURB which I'm not going to go into too much detail about because it's really only marginally relevant and I will be here all day if I try to explain it.

Anyway...thanks to ectobiology, we have two family trees to deal with here:

( cut for lengthy explanation and terribad art )

Most of you probably don't care about any of this but I know there were a few people who were confused so I figured it would be best to clear it up now in case more of us show up. I probably missed a few things in this explanation but I was trying to keep it as short and simple as possible. So if you have any questions, feel free to ask. If I can't answer it, hopefully someone else from my universe can.

A: Video/Action for Goldenrod Hospital
[The Rotom’s face that appears when the feed flicks on isn’t so much IN the screen as it just plain IS the screen. Seems the little booger thought it would be funny to possess a Pokegear. The ghost laughs, sending a jumbled string of letters, 1s, and 0s across the screen because apparently the thing couldn't decide if it was speaking English or binary. A moment later, the face blips off the screen and turns to a view of a hospital room.]

[On the bed sits John, glasses-less and looking only half awake (at best) and more out of it than usual. But what’s really strange is the fact that instead of wearing a hospital gown or even one of his silly Pokemon shirts, he’s wearing this little number, complete with white tights and a matching hair bow stuck in his messier-than-usual hair. In a chair next to the bed sits Rose, wearing what is quite possibly the biggest shit-eating grin in the universe. Despite this, she somehow manages to keep her voice completely level and normal.]

Good morning, sweetheart. I see you are finally awake. How are you feeling, beautiful?

[John gives a sleepy grunt and rubs at his eyes.] Mmm...like death warmed over? Holy shit, I'm hungry...

Well, luckily for you the nurses want you to eat before we go anywhere, though that doesn't mean I can’t take you out later if you'd like, darling.

I would like that, yeah. But before anything, I need my glasses and also my legs feel weir-- are these tights? [Still mostly blind, his hands trail up his own legs, eventually reaching the edge of the dress, at which his expression deadpans and his voice goes flat.] I am wearing an absolutely ridiculous frilly dress right now, aren't I?

And if you are? [Where before her voice was pretty even, she can’t keep the hint of mischief and amusement from it now.]

You're broadcasting this, aren't you?

And if I am?

[At that, John turns to where he thinks Rose, and therefore the camera, is (really, he’s a little off, but the CameRotom moves a little to adjust for this error). Using both hands, he forms identical "v-for-victory" signs to frame his face, pulling the biggest, dorkiest, most painfully cheesy grin he can muster. He is pretty much straight from the mangas right now and his Prankster’s Gambit is plummeting.]

[...yet somehow, it seems impossible to read anything other than murderous intent from John right now.]

[The Rotom cackles and the feed ends for now. Though Tron's work is far from done here, he still has a few tricks up his non-existent sleeves.]

B: Action for Goldenrod City
( Read more... )

((ooc: John's back from hiatus coma-land, responses may come from both.))

Everyone that John is on good terms with and has spoken to at least enough to exchange names will receive a bag of candy canes and home-made gingerbread Pokemon. No jokes here, if he so much as knows your name, you are getting cookies. (yes, Eridan, even you. You won't even get burnt or malformed ones!) It's happening, accept it. Attached is a hand-written Christmas card with assurance that they are not poisoned and a shitty Christmas doodle of some kind.

In addition, the following people will also recieve...

( drumroll please... )

[When John clicks on the feed today, he's accompanied by not one, but two Lopunnies. The One of them (Casey, judging by the pink sweater) is half-cradling the other and stroking its head, occasionally making shhh'ing noises. A Shinx lays next to them, and in John's lap rests the head of the saddest looking shiny Gallade you'll ever see. John himself looks exhausted, though moreso in the emotional sense than the sense of needing to take a nap.]

[He stares at the screen blankly for a good minute before finally speaking, in a voice that sounds as dull and tired as he looks.]

Vriska Serket has gone back home. If any of her Pokemon found their way to you, please let me know. I want to make sure they're all accounted for. And if they did just...promise me that you will take good care of them.

[He falls silent again, looking as though there's more he wants to say. In the end, he can't figure out what to say and ends up tightening his grip on the (what appears to be) a piece of twine clenched in his right hand.]

That's all.

[Click.]