whateveryoueatliveitspart | [Video] [Action for Mahogany Town]

Yamask finally stayed out long enough for me to talk with him.

[After almost a year of trying to get the Pokémon who possessed him for Halloween to actually have a conversation with him, you think he'd be in a better mood. Except not, because Yamask used to be a human.]

His name's Tim Balkie, but he says that I can call him "Punk" if I want. He was 17 years old and lived in Goldenrod City. He likes listening to "punk rock" music and getting into fights, and he wanted to make it so that everyone in Johto is free and no one can tell anyone else what to do. He says he died when he got into a fight and someone hit him on the head with a baseball bat.

[Talking to the ghost of someone who died. Could this get any more depressing?]

Today's his birthday.

[It can.]

He says that he was staying in the PC Box because he'd heard that Pokémon can't die if they're in there, and he didn't want to forget about his life again like he did before we met.

[It really can.]

...I don't know how to cheer him up. I don't even know if I can. Is this even something that someone can be cheered up from?

[Anyone in Mahogany Town will be able to find him sitting under a tree with a pokéball on his lap, fiddling with the pokégear. From what it's reading aloud, he's going through the pokédex data for Yamask, specifically the moves that they can learn.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Aren't you with your family almost every day anyway? At least when any of them are still alive? Getting older doesn't seem like something important to celebrate. It's just something that happens. It would be like celebrating the sun rising.

But it only happens once a year! Besides, when I was little, it was one of the only times I'd get to see my aunts and uncles. They moved to different regions, but they would all come visit for my birthday.

It must have taken them a long time to travel to you. That's nice of them.

The only family that there's ever been for me was Grandpa, and we were together every day, so I guess that he was there for all of my birthdays, even though I don't know when they are.

You only know your grandfather?

Yeah. He never talked about any other family, and I never asked.

Oh... That must have been lonely.

No. Even without Grandpa there are always animals and plants around. I'm never alone.

But it can't possibly be the same, can it? You can't easily hold a conversation with a plant or a pokemon.

[...and this is one of those times that Marian forgets that she's a Yamask and not a person anymore.]

I can use something called "telepathy" to talk to plants and animals. I have Solrock telling me what you're saying right now, but if we were next to each other I could still talk to you. I just wouldn't be able to understand all of the details.

Oh my. I've heard stories of people who can use telepathy, but I'd never met anyone who actually could. And I never knew it could be done with plants too.

It sounds like no one else here has heard of being able to talk to plants. I always thought that everyone could before I came here, but it seems to be a rare ability.

It must be wonderful. What do they talk about?