Thread by @braverius, this is a thread of short stories from 8+ years traveling around [...]

this is a thread of short stories from 8+ years traveling around playing pokemon vgc. buckle up

i will add things as i remember them or am reminded of them. feel free to engage as you'd like

1a) at 2012 fort wayne regionals one of my opponents told me that my rng'd pokemon made me a dirty cheater and that he did things the right way by soft resetting hundreds of times. he then told me i would lose. in the end it came down to my mamoswine vs his burned garchomp.

1b) unfortunately i had set up sand for his garchomp, and i proceeded to miss seven ice shards in a row to lose. years later enfuego told me that i should have clapped back and called him out for abusing the "save feature glitch" and how i wish i could turn back time. kinda.

2.0) still fort wayne 2012. after the event was over i was going to drop @KamaalHarris and @officialtad38 off on the way back to wisconsin and then take macle (smogon frog man) back home after. i was about to turn onto the highway to leave town.

2.1) i pushed my brake all the way to the floor at the red light and the car did not stop. i was only going 10mph or so, so i was able to veer off to the frontage road to the right. my brakes had completely gone out, and it was 5pm on a sunday so no auto repair shops were open.

2.2) this was also before i owned a smartphone or even a gps, so at this point i was just doing whatever i could to work with the alternate plans kamaal and luke had to get home. thankfully both of them found greyhound buses that got them back as they had classes the next day.

2.3) i got them to the greyhound station using my emergency brake + driving like a headass, and then macle and i set out to find a hotel for the night and a place to park my car until it could get towed

2.4) i figured the nearby salvation army would be a reasonable place to leave it until i got a tow truck, so i asked if i could leave it there overnight and they said no. so i asked if they could give me an hour and they begrudgingly let me do it. so i got it towed to sears auto.

2.5) it was now about 7:30 and dark out and none of the hotels would let us stay because neither of us were 21. we exhausted every hotel and bed & bkfst option in downtown except the most expensive one for that night, the courtyard. so we figured we may as well try at that point.

2.6) we explained the situation and the lady at the desk not only gave us a room but also a AAA discount, bless her heart.

macle logged onto irc once we get to the room and kamaal said that he got to gary but the bus station was on fire so he was kinda stuck there.

2.7) NBplaid followed up with "jesus, i wouldn't wish gary, indiana on anyone"

luke got back to madison in time but i don't remember exactly how, in hindsight it's actually impressive that he did.

2.8) the next day i got the damage report from sears and my brake line cracked and leaked all the fluid, and my rotor or something was all warped. $500 and 4 hours later it was all good to go.

2.9) we left town about 3pm and stopped for one last steak n shake meal in warsaw. i pulled out of the steak n shake when we were done and onto the highway and would very quickly learn what i already knew: all of north central indiana looks exactly the same

2.10) until it's not. we arrived in goshen and it was clear by this point that i made a wrong turn. i asked at the gas station how to get to chicago and the cashier had a good laugh at how far i went before i realized. his directions were solid and we got back on track.

2.11) the whole drive back is about 5 hours normally. we reached chicago by the 5 hour mark and then hit an absolute standstill. at 8pm on a weekday. we got back to milwaukee at about 12.

this one still takes the cake on the worst pokemon-related travel experience i've ever had

3.0) at 2013 us nationals, ben7000 was leading our group to the restaurant for dinner despite not knowing where in the fresh hell he was going. he was a very enthusiastic tour guide of indianapolis, however.

3.1) we did eventually get to the restaurant but ben almost didn't make it inside. he wedged himself into the glass revolving door so tightly that everyone in that part of the door needed help getting out. he somehow misaligned the panel in the process and it stayed like that

4.0) during npa 2 @BattleRoom ice punched a rotom-w and picked off the landorus-t switch, upon doing so he stood up and cheered and accidentally punched the light on the ceiling

5.0) at 2014 seattle regionals during one of the first swiss rounds i played a guy whose only wincon on the last turn was to high damage roll crit my venusaur without me getting a double protect. and yes he absolutely high damage roll crit my venusaur and won the battle

5.1) this would have been disappointing but forgettable until immediately upon doing so he stood up, flipped his chair in celebration, and shouted "YES! I KNEW I WAS A GOOD PLAYER! I KNEW I WAS A GOOD PLAYER!" as i signed the match slip and dipped

6.0) back to 2012 fort wayne again, i made a horrible-looking stunfisk plush and brought it to the regional because i had actually used it at 2011 nationals and thought it was funny or something

7.0) toward the end of the 2016 season i just needed top 4 at a mss to clinch my worlds invite. there was one more mss before nats four hours away in spokane so i drove across washington state to go play in it. i went 4-0 in bo3 swiss and didnt drop a game and clinched my invite

7.1) i turned in my cart for the hack check and promptly failed it. the ditto i decided to put on the team 5 minutes beforehand was the one @JiveTimeVGC hacked to test divecats mechanics at nats the previous year. it had "hatched from an egg"

7.2) there were at least a dozen other ditto with max hp evs on my cart and that was the only hacked ditto on there. after that i was dq'd and had to rely on top 64 at nats for my invite

7.3) that was the same tournament a player (who ended up making cut) was helping check teamsheets before it started, making a fuss over that to the TO and then getting dqd was incredibly awkward

8.0) before vgc nats 2014 i was visiting my parents. i was in a skype call with @JiveTimeVGC and @CrowVGC working on a team for the event when my mom told me to get off the computer as a windstorm was coming. i looked at the radar and she had reason to be worried

8.1) a derecho moved in and for about an hour, there were 60-70mph winds and sideways rain and the power went out at some point. usually the power comes back on after a couple hours once the electric company gets on it, but it never came back that day.

8.2) NOAA recap of that storm system: https://www.spc.noaa.gov/misc/AbtDerechos/casepages/jun302014page.htm

i had to finish up the team even if it wasn't fully polished, so i did some theory by candlelight and the next morning drove to a coffee shop and talked with harrison to round it out

8.3) the only real upside to anything was that harrison and jive were the only people who knew the team, and it was pretty original, so the information game was in my favor for swiss. top 16 in cp qualified for worlds that year, and making day 2 nats pretty much sealed my invite.

8.4) i went 6-2 playing a pretty tough schedule and catching a couple breaks with good luck. pairings were posted, and my round 9 opponent was none other than michael lanzano. we sat down and just kinda stared while shaking our heads. he also needed day 2 for his invite.

8.5) it was a good match, came down to a straight up 50/50 decision at the end of the game to decide it. jive won the match, made day 2 and got his invite, i missed mine by 5 cp.

9.0) at 2016 st louis regionals i saw that there was a bj's brewhouse about a 25 min drive away and wanted to eat there. i rounded up some pals ( @PsyJVGC @NailsOU @hanacalypso and @ChuppaVGC) and we headed out

9.1) we got there and it turned out it was "bj's bar" and not the expected restaurant chain

so i drove past in shame and tried to find a place to turn around, and while doing so drove past Nail Me Good

and then swung right back around for the photo op https://twitter.com/braverius/status/701234505617543169

https://twitter.com/braverius/status/701234505617543169

10.0) after top cut at florida regionals in 2013 @Dr_Fidget and i got hungry. so we decided to walk to get food. the only thing nearby was a chick fil a so we headed there

10.1) the path to get there on the map was blocked by a fence so we ended up walking past ponds littered with signs that had no words, only images of gators eating humans on them

as evidenced by us both being here today, alive and ambulating, we did not encounter any gators

10.2) we eventually got to chick-fil-a on that fine sunday afternoon

we then disappointedly walked two miles to a wendy's and then back to the hotel in the dark via the gator lands

11.0) a group of us were walking around indianapolis in 2012 and we walked by some alley where we were aggressively asked from a distance by a bunch of dudes who were Definitely Up To No Good if we were "some sort of church group"

and @CrowVGC's dad was prepared to kick some ass

11.1) (they left us alone and no asses were kicked by crow dad)

12.0) speaking of harrison, at some point in 2012 i was building a team with him. he was really into the idea of mienshao + dusknoir. we were laddering a bit and needed nicknames, and at the same time, i needed dinner

12.1) being a college freshman, i was ill-equipped to practice nutrition or sleep hygiene. it was late. everything was closed. in my fridge was a single bottle of sobe, and in my freezer a lone bag of frozen chocolate chip muffins

so i had dinner. and the combo had a nickname

12.2) sobe & muffins, folks

13.0) boise, idaho 2016. i flew in for a mss because there was a cheap flight and i have no self-control. i arrived the day before and stayed the night at a hotel nearby

saw a denny's out the hotel window and figured i'd get late night food, which you'll notice is a theme for me

13.1) i walk by the hotel windows and happen upon an orgy. at least half a dozen naked dudes just. there. doing things. on the beds. with the curtains open

i pretend i saw nothing and continue to denny's for a mediocre meal

13.2) the next day i went 2-2 and bubbled into 8th and got some championship points i did not feel great about, and then afterward went to explore the city a bit with @BasedSnorlaxVGC

13.3) we got in a shuttle from the venue hotel to get downtown with two other people and mid-ride the guy sitting next to jordan begins an unprompted, overtly racist rant. idk how jordan found it within himself to not confront the guy. we had a nice lunch afterward

14.0) before worlds 2014 i stayed at @AngelJMiranda's place

@SoulSurVGC and @YopYopTDS were also staying

we decided to walk to go eat at mcdonald's late at night

14.1) on the way there a skunk walked out onto the sidewalk about 50 feet away

and jeudy immediately exclaimed "i want to pet it!!" and began running toward the skunk

i nervously yell at him to not do this for a multitude of reasons you can probably deduce

14.2) he eventually stopped chasing it but oh my god

what if he got sprayed?

what would we even have been able to do about it?

and would he still have finished 2nd at worlds?

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