Warning: this post will be about something that happened to me today while playing Pokémon.  Due to quite literally growing up with Pokémon, I lack the filtering processes to know if what I am about to say is too complex for most, but it must be said.

I picked Pokémon Heart Gold back up recently, as my interest in soloing Monster Hunter Freedom Unite has waned severely now that I’m in the high rank.  Over my vacation I tried explaining to my friends why I consider Heart Gold to be one of the best versions since the difficulty is pleasantly high, it has a good critter assortment, Pokéwalker functionality and… well fuck, man it’s just the best version.

Where I’d left off I was taking my time, trying to get my preferred natures for all my favorites.  I re-rolled for a modest Cyndaquil, captured an adamant Magikarp (now a Gyarados), and of course an impish Wooper.  I don’t bother with EV’s or IV’s when playing through the story, but nature is easy enough to control and gives a slight leg-up.

This morning I arrived at Route 36 and discovered a patch of grass where Growlithes appeared.  Now, I’ve had a softspot for this guy since Pokémon Red, so I had to catch one.  I got setup to do my nature run, which meant buying ten Pokéballs for a Premiere Ball (best looking balls A++++), having one open spot, and capturing a worthless Growlithe just to prevent the Pokédex entry text from coming up with each attempt.  I then set my DS’s time back a few hours so it would stay morning — that’s when Growlithes can be found.

I ran away from billions of fucking Stantlers, more than once wondering, “who in the actual fuck likes Stantler?”  I reset several hundred times, and then… the unthinkable happened.  I glanced down from my lunch to see a group of stars swirl around an oddly colored Growlithe.  There was a solid second in which my brain didn’t make the connection – finally I realized: this was a shiny Growlithe.

It wasn’t found via trading, gameshark, or the Masuda method.  This was legit.

Now one complication I was having while seeking out my adamant Growlithe was that at level 14, the little guy still knew roar.  Roar is an attack that scares your trainer and their pokémon away, even though my pokémon was a fucking ghost and I’m a grown ass man (who plays Pokémon).  I could play this one of two ways, put the thing to sleep, or whittle down his HP.  The strongest pokéball in my possession was a Great Ball — not exactly something to bank on — so I needed to get it in the red.

Here’s a turn by turn breakdown of what happened, with emoticons to show my feeling at the time:

• Wild Growlithe appeared! ٩(˙▿˙)۶ *realize it’s shiny* இɷஇ<omg
• Ghastly used Hynosis! ( ઁ❥ઁ) <please work
• The wild Growlithe fell asleep!  The wild Growlithe is fast asleep. ヾ(｡╹ω╹｡)ノ <it worked!
• Ghastly used Night Shade  (灬╹ω╹灬) <He’s down about 40%!
• The wild Growlithe is fast asleep. (ㆁωㆁ*)<just a couple more turns…
• Ghastly used Night Shade °( ◕ ω ◕ )° <Now he’s in the red!
• The wild Growlithe woke up! (ㆆᴗㆆ)*✲ﾟ*｡⋆
• The wild Growlithe used Roar.  ⊙▃⊙

For an equally graphic representation of how I felt, here is how it went down on twitter (read bottom to top):

The worst part?  Since it was my lunch break, and I was sitting at my deck, I couldn’t curse with the full extent of my vocal cords.

Yeah, I know; it’s silly to get too bent out of shape about something so relatively trivial.  I didn’t acquire a string of 0′s and 1′s, but I still have shelter, food to eat, and all those other necessities.  Maybe venting is the best way to move on.  Thanks for listening to my sad, sad story of how the shiny Growlithe got away.