To random bystanders, the protagonist of ‘Twitch Plays Pokémon‘ must have seemed strange — having thousands of people control the movement of a single character makes Red seem erratic. Now imagine what it must’ve felt like to be the mother of a kid that acts that way.
Normally, stuff about Red’s movement goes for laughs, but this excellent comic by famaululat goes for the heart instead. It’s the story of Red’s mother, her worry about her son’s behaviour — and eventual relief when his adventure is over. Check it out:
Aww. I kind of love all the stories people have come up with to go along with the first playthrough of ‘Twitch Plays Pokemon.’ I’d like to think things got better for Red, mental-health wise, now that it’s all over, but that’s partially because I’ve also seen this other emotional comic by kiyokon:
Dang.
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One response to “What Red’s Mum Must Have Felt During ‘Twitch Plays Pokémon’”
It actually makes a cool tale when seen from Red’s point of view: One day he suddenly started hearing voices in his head; thousands of them. They would demand him to do things and he was compelled to obey in the hopes they’d leave him alone. What were they? spirits? gods? aliens? No matter what they were, one thing was sure, they were not all in agreement. Some would have him move forward, while others would try to make him go backwards. Others would just cruelly have him walking in circles.
And yet, little by little, he moved forward. He left his home behind, his family and friends. It seemed that even though the voices were discordant, there was a majority of them that had a set goal, a quest for him to complete. He was made become a hunter, a tamer, a trainer. Even when the “bad” voices managed to overcome the good and set him back catastrophically, his total progress was unstoppable. He, a simple kid from a small podunk village, travelled the world, defeated other much more experienced trainers, unravelled mysteries, undid criminal plots. And when he eventually was faced with almost insurmountable challenges, something changed: The “bad” voices lost their power. He still could hear their incessant whine in the back of his mind, but all the other voices joined with his own volition. His steps became purposeful, his goals clear. He defeated the elite trainers of the world, faced his estranged father and put and end to his criminal career, and finally was able to carry to a conclusion an old rivalry with his hometown’s resident bully.
Only then, the voices in his head died. Has it been all his own doing? The voices but a device of his tortured mind to push his old, sheltered, dad-resentful self to face his own demons by pocketing those in the wild? Probably. And while doing so, he had become the VERY BEST.