If you're really lucky, it filtered into Spam

[uber_marionettist]

[Good morning, Trainers (and Pokemon with their Trainers' PokeGear.)

Your inboxes contain an indecent number of new images. Open them up, and it's revealed they're all photos! Selfies, to be exact.

Taken by what appears to be... a broadly-smiling Machoke, seen flexing and posing to show off her dense and bulging musculature (as well as her razor-sharp teeth) in each shot. And, in fairness, those are some very plentiful teeth... and even more plentiful muscles. All Machoke are stacked, it's literally what they do. And yet.

Maybe it's the lightning, or maybe it's the angle...

These photos are clearly meant to be more than just the rote song and dance number of Machoke-kind: they're a symphony. Each shot sings the song of sinew, the hymn of heft, the melody of muscle.

And the, uh... the tempo of... teeth.

She is making intense eye contact with the camera in almost every one. Yes, truly it is a glorious display of raw, chiselled physique that graces your inboxes this morning.



Some of them even feature a Rapidash in the background, sometimes standing with ears pinned irritably, other times posing with a majestically arched neck and proud lift to its head.

In all cases, there's been absolutely no use of any privacy features, so at least you can reply directly to their sender. In case you feel the need to do that before you make heavy use of the delete button print them off to hang on your walls and save as your Gear wallpaper.]

Comments

video;

[shiro2hero]

[Responding to this are ... two very different takes. As two very different pokemon fight for the right to reply first. One of them is an Incineroar. The other? A shiny Gallade.]

[Blue, the aforementioned Gallade keeps attempting to fire off flirtatious winks. And finger guns with his thumb and finger-less hands. How you doin'? He would very much like to know.]

[Red, the Incineroar, yanks the 'gear back. So she can hold it in one massive paw, and flex her own muscles with the other. Good show, fellow muscle pokemon! She appreciates your guns by showing you her own!]

[uber_marionettist]

[COS frowns a little at the Gallade's pathetic attempts to woo her--she knows he shares a type with her, and there's no excuse for his tactless overtures!

That frown turns upside down when a magnificent Incineroar puts on a proper flex--]

That's it, sister! Show me how STRONG you are!!

[Speaking of roaring, this Machoke is... really loud. She flexes both her arms downwards with an excited, exaggerated kind of violence, then lifts one to really emphasise that bicep.]

I've been WAITING for someone who can CHALLENGE these ladies right here!!!

[shiro2hero]

[You'd think Blue would be used to that by now. But Blue is undeterred, waving in the background all the while. He does not give up easily.]

[Red the Incineroar bellows out something cheerful in return. Why she would LOVE to show off her guns! This is the best opportunity! Finally a fellow muscle lady who understands!]

[The feed is now home to a lot of ridiculous posing. Like something out of an anime -- ha hah.]

[BEHOLD! THE POWER OF THE FICEPS! THE FIRE BICEPS.]

[oh god she inherited shiro's puns]

This isn't even the oldest tag in my inbox, and then I realised I could write this so easily,

[uber_marionettist]

[Oh, Blue.... then again, noodlier beings than you have impressed athletes not dissimilar to this one... you just gotta show her the STRENGTH of your SPIRIT!

And that pun is painful, but not as painful as the BURN required to get these GAINS, sister!!

Where are you?! COS would love to really feel how STRONG you are!!]

video

[plasticasshole]

Um... thank you. For these.

[Said while casually deleting all of them. A Cofagrigus floats behind Connor as he does so, flexing its skinny arms in an attempt to look half as impressive. A comically small bump appears on one arm, and it claps enthusiastically.]

Video

[uber_marionettist]

[COS lifts her head and opens her toothy mouth into a broad grin, showing off every single carnivorous fang. Of course you like her photos, strange human! She has no idea how you got them, but thanking her is absolutely the correct response and she's glad you see that!

Clapping is also acceptable!

She points at the Cofagrigus behind him and then puts the Gear down to flex both of her arms downwards, a bowed-arm double-display of her broad shoulders and fantastic musculature--]

Ma--

[Then she flexes up, pushing her chest out to show off her magnificent pectorals, yellow eyes closed in smug pride.]

Choke!!

[Video]

[cyan_maid]

Hello, COS.

[Yes, Jane recognizes the majesty that is a specific Machoke she once met while her trainer was absolutely loopy from a cold.]

You're looking well, I see! Having fun with the Poke'gear, hm?

[Video]

[uber_marionettist]

[COS remembers Jane! She mostly remembers Jane as being the one that she wasn't disappointed Dirk didn't fight, because she really thought she'd get to see her trainer fight another human, and she was very excited about that idea. After all, she and Dirk trained together! And she thought he was very strong for a human! She was very proud to have him as a trainer: a human who understood real muscular beauty and art and power. Real STRENGTH.

And even though he hadn't... seemed very, uh. Very okay at the time, she thinks Dirk still could have taken the big glasses man. Oh well, maybe she'll get to see them fight some other time.

But! This one seemed to make Dirk less angry, so COS mimics her trainer's standard sign of a positive take, giving Jane a bold thumbs-up.]

Cho!!

[She then flexes that arm, showing off the bulging bicep.

Then a soft, wide, white nose jams its way underneath that arm, snorting hot air at the camera as its owner tries to angle for a chance at the spotlight. COS nearly drops the 'Gear and the video gets very shaky for a second.

The wave of fire over the crest of COS' muscles indicates this is probably that Rapidash.]

[Video]

[cyan_maid]

[She applauds at the display, very impressed. For all of Dirk's...Dirk-ness, he seemed to be training the Pokemon he wanted to keep very well. And hey, at least they're polite.]

Oh, very nice! I see your friend is appreciating the view as well, hm?

[Video] This tag feels so serious but horse faces are absurd

[uber_marionettist]

[Training Pokemon is the whole point, here. You don't win the game or LEAVE the game without engaging with the game in some form or fashion.

Also... while he hasn't been excellent at engaging with the game in an in-universe fashion, the only person he's fully 'revealed' himself to is Jane. Do his Pokemon know?

Better question: do his Pokemon understand?

Well, maybe that's a question for another day. COS, in a grand display of magnanimity, shifts the 'gear to her other massive hand and angles it so that Jane is staring directly down the long nose of a glossy-coated Rapidash... who turns his head to the side, studying the camera with a dark, glittering eye. ]

[Video] why are they so long? we just don't know

[cyan_maid]

[Jane nods approvingly. If it was obvious he'd been neglectful, she would have engaged in words.]

Hello to you, too! How are things over there, hm?

[uber_marionettist]

[Being a horse is hard sometimes because your eyes are on the side of your head.

That is the only drawback to being a horse.

Acorn steps forward, closer to the Gear that COS is holding--and then closer still, until his left eye is very close to the screen. Jane can actually see herself reflected in the dark pupil.

She can hear COS in the background:]

Cho, Machoke? Ma CHOKE?

[There's an attempt to move the Pokegear further from Acorn's eye, and then a kerfuffle as Acorn lets out a furious whinny and grabs the Gear in his horrible giant horse teeth and Jane gets to look at the roof of a horse's mouth for a minute while chaos breaks out between them.]

[cyan_maid]

[Oh my fucking God.

Jane just starts laughing, her face crinkling with amusement. Cute! This is too sweet and cute!]

Hoo - gracious, play nicely now!

[uber_marionettist]

[It's incredible that none of Dirk's Pokemon actually know how to Play Rough, considering--

The scuffle is fast but furious, and the Gear gets dropped, just once. Jane get a beautiful view of the morning sky, interrupted by rapidly approaching horse face, racing for the Gear in competition with a thick grey hand. Acorn wins by a (literal) nose, but barely--this time Jane can see a lot more of what's going on, which appears to be a big and extremely fast victory lap, the camera still aimed skyward.

Then it slows and gets pretty bumpy, and a human hand covers the much abused camera for a second.]

Okay, you're done. If I wanted to stress test my 'Gear I'd have--oh.

[Dirk's glasses are a blurry outline, an image slimy with horse drool.

Hm. This is. Awkward.]

[cyan_maid]

[She's chuckling the entire time, enjoying the rambunctious display, until...ah.

Mm.

Huh.]

...Ah...you ought to keep better track of this thing, you know.

[Yeah, cool. Smooth.]

text/video

[cyclonely]

[John spent a really stressful afternoon with this Machoke, so he recognises her almost immediately, with the help of the occasionally present fire pony in the background. Can pokemon read? He isn't sure. Does Dirk have more than one device? If he's as serious and prepared as he likes to sell himself...maybe.

Anyway, he seemed really pissed about his Rotom getting into his PokeGear so John decides that even though Dirk doesn't deserve it, he'll be nice and fire off a text to him first.]

hey, dirk! co sign is sending a lot of pictures of herself to everyone so you should probably know that!
unless you do know and this is some kind of weird move? in which case maybe you should get her poke snapchat if that is something that exists here.

[He follows this up with a video for the Machoke specifically.]

Hi there, Cosine! Did you mean to send these to everyone or is this for my Pokemon to see actually? Is this, uh, pokeflirting?

1/2 (One from COS, one from Dirk.......)

[uber_marionettist]

[COS looks a little blank. Like she didn't really... think about that? Except that really she did, she just didn't realise what outcome she'd selected. Her fingers are large, you see. Also, her ability to read is nonexistent.

She shrugs her massive shoulders like John has asked the world's most irrelevant, dismissable question, and flexes for him again.

She wouldn't flirt with you, John. She fully expects to see you get trashed personally by her trainer!]]

[cyclonely]

[John chuckles, unaware of COS' opinion of him but charmed by her commitment to literal flexing.]

I just wanted to know if you would prefer I hand my Gear off to one of my Pokemon! Uh...probably Harry Stamper I think. [They might get along? Or that might be stereotyping. John can't say.]

[Text]

[uber_marionettist]

[A while later, John gets messages from Dirk.]

What? Are you fucking serious? You mean COS, right? You know, like the trigonometric function?

Yeah, of course I knew. She can't read, so it took her forever to get to the camera function, but it was pretty much hilarious, so I let her do it. What's the problem?

[cyclonely]

you didn't call her cos, you called her cos sign! i heard you!

anyway it is pretty funny, i just thought you might have more of a problem with it after the whole tangent thing?

[uber_marionettist]

Jesus, I'm almost speechless. I guess I'm teaching you basic mathematics now. SIN (sine), COS (cosine), and TAN (tangent) are basically the simplest periodic functions that exist. They're the ratios of the sides of a right angled triangle.

God damn. Next thing you're gonna tell me is that you don't know the Pythagorean theorem.

And no, because this is neither interfering with my personal life or going behind my back to do it. I set a single fucking rule down to prevent that shit. One. Don't possess my fucking communications technology.

That was the only rule there was to break, and TAN went out of its way to break it. No one's going to think I'm a Machoke sending selfies. And if they do, that's not my problem.

[cyclonely]

/rolls eyes!!

ok well you don't need to be a smug asshole about it!

i know you have to but you don't NEED to.

i stopped having school after the world ended and my dad died when i was thirteen so i don't know about cosines and i barely remember the pythagorean theorem or what it does. it turns out i didn't actually need to know about it except for this one case when the nerd ex-friend of my teen nanna named his pokemon after math terminology!

anyway you obviously have some weird hang up that is making the tangent situation worse for you than it actually is because i think there are times like when you are worried your friend is killing himself by being dumb and shitty about his fever that rules are made to be broken.

but you are better off without each other if you can't see that so i am not going to push about it.

[uber_marionettist]

It seems you're trying to get under my skin, though I can't imagine why. I don't like it any more than you do, you know. In fact, I'd even say I deserve more credit. I was an actual friend to Jane back on Earth C. Unlike you.

And it's not a 'weird hangup.' It's basic data security. There's no point to, for example, enacting dual-factor authentication if the nonhuman intelligence you keep in your pocket can just slip inside and send whatever messages or delete whatever activities whenever it so chooses. But that's not the problem. The problem is I set a rule, and TAN knowingly broke that rule. End of story.

Why doesn't matter. It's never mattered.

Have you really thought about what you're saying here?

You're biased towards justifying a course of action that validates your personal beliefs and attitudes, but it's pretty flimsy even for that.

The rules are made up, John. They don't actually exist. But when we claim they do, don't you think it's for a purpose?

[cyclonely]

wow, i wasn't actually but i sure am now!

i don't even know if that is true, dude! if it takes as little as being a slightly different version of the same person for you to stop being their friend, maybe you were being a bad friend there too! i can't ever call you on that for real because i am dead at home.

anyway it sounds like you're just making up rules based on your bias towards justifying a course of action that validates your personal beliefs and attitudes, dirk, and as we both know, that is no good! you should try making decisions based solely on cold hard logic instead of all your stupid feelings.

[uber_marionettist]

Goddamnit, John. I'm not your enemy. I'm trying to talk to you but it's like talking to a fucking wall. Or maybe I'm just getting whatever passes for your brain's voice mail. Whatever. I'm only doing this once. Got it?

You're right, you can't call me on that, for real or otherwise. Because you spent seven years avoiding her. The fact that you'd recently joined the ranks of the deceased is secondary. And the fact that you fundamentally misunderstand the situation is tertiary.

You're just not saying anything new here. No shit I'm a bad friend. I've been a bad friend in the past and right now I'm probably the worst friend anyone could have. Frankly I don't know why the effigy of Jane Crocker you've saddled yourself with isn't fucking grateful I'm not taking up her time here. Except that nothing I just said there actually means anything.

What does it mean to be a "bad friend?" Does it mean refusing to pull my punches? To mince and wheedle and alter truth? To make her feel better about me? About herself? To help her achieve her goals? Her dreams? To hold her back? To what end? What price friendship, John? What purpose?

I did right by her in our time, when it fucking mattered. And that's a fucking low bar. It's so low it's six feet under. With you, now.

So just be careful with those opinions before you hurt yourself on them.