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i wish i would wake up in pokémon gold.

it’s not impossible. it’s not even implausible. i’ve been sending myself what, in hindsight, might seem like less-than-subtle hints.

wake up in new bark town and spend the rest of eternity filling out my pokédex, crushing the elite four, kicking my rival’s ass, kicking red’s cave-dwelling ass too.

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heaven is simple. heaven is a gameboy color [sic] cartridge. heaven is a backpack, a town map, a bicycle and some pokéballs. heaven is a mystery egg, a super rod and an ss ticket.

are you a boy, or a girl? asks the voice of god. i don’t know. maybe a girl this time, that might be cool. remind me, again, what your name is?

my name, my name, my name.

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i catch all the legendary pokémon. i collect all the badges, all the hidden items, every tm, every hm. i defeat the elite four with a squad of six level 100 weedles, just for fun, just to lard my own legend. i fuck misty. i spend months, years, decades, unageing, agelessly meditating on the meaning of life, deep in the digestive tract of some vast undersea cave network.

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i fly. i surf. i flash. i set all my pokémon free, start again with a level 3 pidgey. i become a gym leader for a while, a professor, a bugcatcher, a backpacker, a blackbelt, a rocket grunt. i join a bicycle gang, i fall in love, i faint, i die.

i scroll down from continue, i press new game, and go again.