After that previous comic, my readers felt sorry for the Slowbro too, so I drew this. I like to think Lass took a remedial course on Pokémon husbandry and now they're getting along just swell.

 After I originally posted this one ages ago, one reader came up with a fan theory that Professor Oak overused Repels, went insane, died, and then came back as some sort of malevolent revenant who gives Pokedexes to unsuspecting beginner Trainers.

Naturally, I took that idea and ran with it, which explains a lot of Oak's characterization in Book 2.

I guess I came up with this one because this guy's explanation of Repel reminded me of a medication ad.

 I always felt bad for that poor Slowbro getting yelled at by its trainer in Cerulean City. Slowbro may be dopey, but they have feelings too!

 When you tell me someone will do whatever it takes for something, I just start to worry.

Also, I had fun drawing the Shady Docks. Sounds like a nice part of town.

Also, I've finally gotten around to starting Pokemon Legends: Z-A and oh man I'm having so much fun. New stuff might be kind of scarce because right now I just want to spend all my free time roaming around Lumiose City and pretending to be noncompetitive but then owning at the Z-A Royale. I do have another revised Neopets story at the editor's, though, and I will start posting chapters on this blog once she's done taking a look at it.

 I don't understand how anyone can say this when Pokémon trainers basically get to make a career out of goofing off with monsters. Sounds like most kids' dream job.

Funnily enough, in Pokémon Sun and Moon, there's a group of older, retired trainers who imply that they didn't make enough money off of being a trainer to earn a living, and had to go into other lines of work. And yet you can still make limitless tons of money winning battles and selling valuable items you find on your journey. Maybe those guys just weren't trying hard enough?

... One thing that I like about video games versus the real world is that in the former, you're always compensated fairly for overachieving. Anyone else go around collecting all the resources in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom? No? I may need to rethink my life.

Also, this makes me think about video game design in general and how sometimes I see games where the dev team put so much focus on things like incredible next-gen hyperrealistic graphics, super-advanced AI, and ridiculously detailed programming, that they forgot to actually make the game fun. Like, my definition of a good video game is something you can sit down with for a few hours to unwind at the end of the day, and come away feeling satisfied and refreshed and entertained. Things like graphics and tech specs should take a back seat (or at least the passenger seat) to an enjoyable experience. And that's why I'm such a big Pokémon fan--because the games are just plain good old-fashioned fun.

 I've had this idea on my mind for a long time, and finally was able to get around to rendering it. Whenever I see one of those "SHARE THE ROAD" signs, I just keep wanting it to say this because I have a really odd sense of humor.

Now I just want to do an entire series of Middle-earth road signs. "WATCH FOR FIGHTING ROCKS", maybe? "YIELD TO FELLOWSHIPS"? "DO NOT PICK UP GOLLUMS"?

 Those sly Rockets. Also don't invite them to Scrabble night. They have a surprisingly broad vocabulary.

(Yes, I know there are no female Team Rocket members in Gen I. While I tried to stay faithful to extant character designs when portraying actual in-game dialogue, I played around with character design a bit more if I had to make up my own characters for a scene. I guess my headcanon is that female Rockets have always existed, it's just that none of them appeared in Kanto in Gen I for some reason.*)

*Although, in Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee, there are quite a few female Team Rocket members, which sort of retcons their male-only population in Red/Blue.**

**I omitted Yellow because Jessie appears in that game, so it is not technically devoid of female Rockets. But at this point I've just become too pedantic. As my sister says, it's not that deep.