#pokemon blue

greentrickster:

Another thing about Blue and sign language in this AU, I think it’s something he takes a lot of advantage with when talking with Red. Generally he’ll use primarily spoken words (combined with signing these days if his hands are free), but he will actively and on purpose take advantage of the fact that he and Red are both fluent and a lot of people aren’t if he wants to be private or exclusive.

He will also take advantage of it when Red is driving him crazy to talk with his hands while vocalizing sounds of extreme frustration at the same time. Red generally finds this amusing.

He also uses it to mess with Blue right back, generally by closing is eyes and doing the whole, “Oh, oh no, I cannot hear you. Oh dear.” routine. Because it not only forces Blue to use his vocal words if he wants to keep yelling at him, it means that Blue’s going to have to figure out how to do so without swearing, because Blue’s gotten very firmly into the habit of only swearing in sign (he’s a gym leader and a pokemon professor, he encounters a lot of young, impressionable minds who are looking to pounce on the first bad word they come across). And this does throw off Blue’s train of thought and make him trip over his words. (Blue is the main troll in this rivalry-friendship, but Red is far from helpless when he wants to retaliate.)

In regards to Red himself, his inability to speak vocally comes from his vocal chords (and I’m sorry, I’m not going to research a specific medical explanation for this because my horrible brain will use anything I find as nightmare fuel as I’m going to sleep, again, apologies), not his tongue or mouth. So while he can’t talk like Blue can, he is able to still make sounds that don’t involve the vocal chords though, again, signing is easier and more convenient for him. He still doesn’t tend to make these sounds very often, and he’s fully capable of clicking his tongue or giving a distainful ‘tch’ if Blue is being especially annoying.

One thing he does relatively frequently is whistle - he can easily carry a tune and is much better at it than Blue (does Blue find this annoying? Of course he does). He also uses specific patterns of notes and a clicker to train and battle with his pokemon - each one of them has a special pattern of notes that is the whistled equivalent of their name, and knows the pattern of clicks and/or whistled notes for their various moves and strategies. (They also all have name signs, but that’s not as useful in battle.)

Clicker training is an acknowledged and accepted method of both training and battling according to overarching international pokemon league guidelines, but it’s not as common as ‘traditional’ methods just yet, and, while your average gym leader or Champion will be familiar with it, the average trainer can often be thrown when encountering this method for the first time, as it means they have to pay much closer attention to discern their opponent’s tactics and what move they’re going to use. At this point in his life Red has a laminated card explaining clicker training and why he’s doing it that he can just hand to people if they get annoyed or confused about what he’s doing, so he doesn’t have to type or sign it out every time.

@aoxizu  #what if red had like a geodude or something that could use rollout named rick astley #and whenever he wanted it to use that move he could just whistle the notes of never gonna give you up #to deal double damage to both the pokemon and the trainer #physical damage to the opposing pokemon and psychological damage to the trainer #and also a pokemon that could use one of the something cannon moves #just variants of the first 8 notes of pachelbel’s canon in d #d a b fsharp g d g a but in different scales not just d major #would probably be 2x effective against any trainers who play the cello

I don’t think the pokemon world would have any songs or musical pieces that we’d recognize beyond ones we know from the show, our worlds are too different, but I think the concept you’re talking about here is absolutely spot on! Using a few easily recognizable notes from songs he’s familiar with that have some sort of obvious connection with the move would be a great mnemonic! And he probably pairs signals like these with a single click, to make the signals to use these moves distinct from times he’s just whistling that particular song or piece of music.

Some trainers do indeed take extra damage from this, some don’t notice, and some think it’s really funny or clever.

Also, just in regards to pokemon, Red’s main team in this is the one he uses in Sun/Moon (since that’s the game that’s closest to where he is in age at the moment). So that’s Pikachu, Venusaur, Charizard, Blastoise, Lapras, and Snorlax.

In the same vein, Blue’s main team is Alakazam, Aerodactyl, Arcanine, Gyarados, Machamp, and Exeggutor. They do have the other pokemon they use in other battles in other games, but these are their primary teams at the moment, with the others tending to be running around Blue’s lab, because Arceus has cursed him for his hubris and his work is never done. (Or at least that’s what Blue says. ;) )

Raichu, give em a dundabolt!!! ⚡️ ⚡️

I got to draw Lt Surge for another one of @crimsonyuu ‘s amazing collabs on IG! Go check it out to see the other gym leaders drawn by a bunch of talented artists!