4 Creepy Ways 'Pokemon' Changed Since You Stopped Playing

4 Players Became Obsessed With Math

When you're a kid, playing Pokemon is easy: You pick the Pokemon that look rad and make them attack the other guy until someone wins. When you have a gigantic armored turtle armed with highly pressurized water cannons, it's not hard to determine your battle tactics.

Sure, there was some strategy, but as long as you didn't, say, send a walking flower to fight a creature that's literally made of fire, you could hold your own against most foes.

But then fans grew up and got serious about winning. They collectively said, "Hey, this game where monsters battle monsters is fun, but how can I add spreadsheets to it and get this MOTHERFUCKING PARTY STARTED FOR REAL!?"

Like many games, Pokemon has a lot of math going on in the background -- there are hidden statistics and calculations that determine how strong your critters are, sort of like how supercomputers secretly control the elaborate simulation that is our existence. Dedicated gamers have gone through the looking glass and figured out the inner secrets of Pokemon. For example, here's how "individual values," one of several hidden statistics, are calculated:

For those of you who don't feel like digging out your TI-89s to follow along, here's a practical application comparing two Pokemon:

What, that doesn't make sense to you either? Well, don't look at me for an explanation -- I've played the majority of Pokemon games, but this still just looks like a calculator got diarrhea to me. The only context I can provide is that a Marill is this:

Intuition tells me that Marill B has an advantage over Marill A, but that's based solely on the shaky assumption that something called "thick fat" isn't as powerful as something called "huge power."

I'm not going to bore you with the nitty-gritty details of Pokemon math, because reading about it actually makes you less physically attractive, but it boils down to this: All Pokemon of the same type will have slightly different attributes. That means some will be naturally stronger than others and some will have (not to get technical here) a certain "fatness" about the "thick area." You can therefore make sure your Pokemon is the best of its kind if you're willing to read long essays on the subject, invest many tedious hours in the game, and reduce your knowledge of sunlight to a hazy memory of what it once was.

Gamers who want to be the very best (like no one ever was) have to catch or breed the same Pokemon over and over again until they get the characteristics they want, while releasing the inferior specimens into the wild to ultimately live richer and more fulfilling lives than the gamer ever would.

3 It Secretly Got Dark

Everyone, I'd like you to meet Drifloon:

Cute, right? These guys just float around, enjoy the open skies, and, uh, try to kidnap children.

Yup, Drifloons are all attempted, and apparently sometimes successful, child snatchers. According to the official in-game descriptions, they try to pull away children who grab them, and any kid who mistakes Drifloons for balloons "could wind up missing." Suddenly the game where you make lightning squirrels murder fire dogs doesn't sound so innocent, does it?

Every single Pokemon has bits of backstory to help explain why there are psychic creatures with IQs of 5,000 and slugs that could melt your face off just roaming the wilderness. Most of these descriptions are sensible, and often they're even quite cute. And then you've got wild balloons looking to raise a generation of Lindbergh babies.

I'm just getting started. The developers have been sneaking in more and more of these creepy little stories. Here's a little fellow named Banette:

A Banette is a doll that comes to life when its owner discards it. Upset about being neglected, it stalks the child who abandoned it like a twisted Japanese Toy Story. It casts curses on its enemies by using its own body as a voodoo doll (which suggests it doesn't quite know how voodoo works, but whatever). While most Pokemon are flesh and blood, this one is literally powered by the force of its own hateful grudge. Its only purpose in life is revenge. And it lives in garbage bins and dark alleys, so once a balloon lures a child there, it has the perfect spot to do the deed. Damn, being a kid in this world is rough.

So, how do you get worse than child-murdering Pokemon? Well, just like in many a terrible plot twist, the real monster is you. Say hello to Yamask:

The story behind these poor bastards is that they're ancient spirits risen from the grave. The mask they carry resembles the human face they had long ago, and "Sometimes they look at it and cry." Sometimes they look at it and cry.

You're capturing the souls of dead people and forcing them to battle for you, all while they remember their long gone loved ones in between bouts of sobbing. You've trapped them in an existential nightmare. To them, you're the devil. But hey, at least they'll have child murderers to keep them company.

2 The Unofficial Merchandise Is Ridiculous

If you went to school during the Pokemon craze, you inevitably knew a talented kid who could draw Charizard with his eyes closed. Well, those kids grew up to be artists, and Etsy and its ilk are letting them share what could generously be called their visions with the world. That's how we ended up with the Pokebra:

The seller claims that this is the perfect product for showing off your nerdy side while still looking sexy. Then, without missing a beat, she reminds us that this bra is inspired by a hit children's franchise. You know, the one where pretty much every female lead is a child too young for a training bra, let alone something that shows off her sex appeal. I'm not saying adults shouldn't be allowed to enjoy Pokemon, but maybe don't try to sex up a series where the protagonists haven't been told about the Pidgeys and the Beedrills yet.

But for ladies who have gone through that very special time in their lives, how about this Pokemon menstrual pad?

I'm less qualified to talk about menstruation than Carrie White, but I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be a fun, light-hearted event where you bleed all over your favorite fictional characters to demonstrate your love for them. Sadly, it's no longer available, but if you really want to combine Pokemon with your vagina, don't despair. Two enterprising Berkeley students made Pokemon vibrators they dubbed Pokmemon, because making sex toys inspired by the monsters from a children's entertainment franchise apparently calls for lame puns and not psychiatric help.

The creators noted that they could find Hello Kitty vibrators, but no pocket monster pocket rockets. This is a situation they "felt the need to rectify," apparently without pausing to wonder if maybe there's a good reason Pokemon sex toys aren't readily available to get you through those lonely nights.

1 The Really Hardcore Fans Became Perverts

Everyone knew that one kid who was really into Pokemon. I mean, really, really, can list them all numerically and alphabetically into them. Well, guess what? They still love Pokemon. The only difference is that their love has turned physical. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my displeasure but duty to introduce you to the Pokegirl World Project.

Some very lonely people decided to take every Pokemon in existence and anthropomorphize them as teenage girls, and if you don't immediately see the problem with the concept of capturing girls, then that's probably something you've done in real life.

It's no surprise that people have masturbated to Pokemon. That's the Internet for you -- me and my 1TB drive of erotic Frasier fan fiction are in no position to criticize. But a project that admits to first being "largely about sex" has gone way further, plunging into an abyss from which few return with their minds intact.

They've taken their Pokegirls, with their creative names like Abslut and Moantwo, and built an entire world around them. They've assembled an encyclopedia that contains millions of words. There are descriptions of all 600+ Pokegirls, of course, which include fun facts like "No Boobisaur has ever been reported with anything less than a generous C cup." Then there's the history of their alternate universe and reams of fan fiction. Dear god, the fan fiction. There haven't been this many wasted words since Shakespeare was translated to Klingon.

Then they created rules, along with massive lists of items, attacks, and other gameplay elements, essentially constructing an entire Pokemon game that revolves around boning and only caters to a very specific category of pervert. They even came up with an elaborate mini-game they'll never be able to play when they need a break from not being able to play the main game they invented. They spend so many hours building their fake sex game, I'm not even sure if they have time to actually masturbate to it.

This all sounds horribly misogynistic, right? But don't worry, it's totally not sexist! Sure, Pokegirls may have erotic names, and all the descriptions of them emphasize their sexual attractiveness, and they all have "an impressive libido, and a natural psychology to submit to a master," and human "tamers" add Pokegirls to their "harem" by fucking them into submission, and when a Pokegirl is tamed she experiences "the mild mental trauma of accepting another as her master," and you can "correct" lesbian Pokegirls into becoming bisexual or heterosexual ... but women can be "tamers" too, so it's totally cool, you guys. That's not a joke, that's literally their argument.

So that obsessive fan you knew, the one who was a little weird but always happy to give you tips? He's probably masturbating to his Pokemon as you read this. And now that I've destroyed all of your fond childhood memories, would you like to trade Pokemon with me?

You can read more from Mark, and check out his erotic Pokemon fan fiction, at his website.

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