“Bad Day by Daniel Powter dot MP3” aka Why I Crashed Out After Losing A Shiny Growlithe
I wasn’t even looking at the 3DS screen when I heard the chime.
My partner Alex and I have started playing Pokemon Heart Gold (me) and Soul Silver (him) together for fun, since I own both game cartridges. I was so excited at the thought of it: I purchased some used Pokewalkers online since both of ours were lost, and won an auction for a HGSS strategy guide that was in pretty good condition. I had actually purchased two DSPico cartridges for us to eventually use once INFRARED capabilites could be modded onto the chip. Both of us were attached to our HG saves and we didn’t want to save over them to be able to utilize the Pokewalkers together.
My HG save was a bit strange though. For some reason, I could not get the Spiky Eared Pikachu event to proc, nor did I have a Ho-Oh in my box despite having caught it. I had always kind of figured I had left in in my lost Pokewalker, although if I’m remembering correctly the last thing I had in there was an event Mew (also RIP event Mew)
By chance I happened to be reading my old blog and I saw that my ex had had my Ho-Oh this whole time… Learning this cut the nostalgic ties I had for my save, and I decided it would be okay if I started a new save on the cartridge. (I did backup my original HG saves though so it still lives on in my laptop for now.) So we started playing together! It’s actually a bit funny in the way that despite him working full time he is way farther ahead of me in the game. I just beat Whitney yesterday and he is reportedly on his seventh badge. :,,3
Leading to today, where I wanted to play a little to catch up to him. I had just finished catching Sudowoodo last night, and so I was on Route 37. I had actually caught a Growlithe earlier today for Alex, using the Friend Ball I had just to give it extra charm. I honestly was just trying to level up and evolve some of my Pokemon, namely my Rattata nicknamed Joey and my Hoothoot nicknamed Blathers. And so it brings us to what happened.
I whipped my head over, seeing the yellow Growlithe on the screen. Alex was on lunch break at the time, so I shot up in bed, exclaiming that I found my first 2D game shiny. I was excited, nervous, and trying to lock in. Blathers knew Hypnosis, so I switched out Joey for him and attempted to put the shiny Growlithe to sleep. It missed. Okay, no worries, we can try it again.
It missed again? What the fuck? I didn’t think anything of it when I attempted Hypnosis for the third time. It missed a third time.
The full odds shiny Growlithe used Roar.
—
I yelled it aloud, my eyes shooting over towards Alex. Even without my glasses on, I could infer his jaw drop on his blurred visage. I just kind of sat there, as Alex asked me what happened. I remembered I had a Gastly with Mean Look. Why hadn’t I used it?? (Alex did console me by saying Mean Look wouldn’t have worked anyways) I can’t believe Hypnosis missed three times in a fucking row. BLATHERS EVEN HELD A METRONOME? (I know Metronome was inconsequential to whether or not a move lands or not)
If I’m remembering correctly, my original Crystal version save had a shiny Suicune on it. I recall it sparkling, but as a kid I thought that’s just because it was a special Pokemon. I’ve never caught another shiny Pokemon in one of the 2D era games. I don’t even know if I’m accurately remembering having a Shiny Suicune. That’s why I was so excited at the prospect of finding my “first” full odds shiny. I even recall saying to Alex when I was in the battle that I had been so scared when I was playing Platinum for the first time because I worried I would run into a shiny Zubat or Diglett or something grinding and /that/ would have been my first 2D shiny.
Shiny Growlithe is yellow, which is my favorite color, and is the Pokemon I think of when you’re eventually asked “What Pokemon would you want to have in real life?” (I wanna ride big doggie) It never even occurred to me how nice it would be to have it as my “first” 2D shiny.
You might be wondering why I’m so fixated on a 2D shiny. It’s not like it’s even my first wild shiny. That would be a Mareep, in Pokemon Scarlet, and the only reason I didn’t return the game after seeing how janky it was. Mareep happens to be my favorite line, ironically because I was traded one in my original HG save by my ex, and I fell in love with Flaaffy. However, the shiny odds have been lowered as the Generations of Pokemon games continue to grow. As documented on [Serebii.net](tab: https://www.serebii.net/games/shiny.shtml), Shiny odds went from a base chance of 1 in 8,192 wild encounters to halved at 1 in 4,096 starting in Generation 6, Pokemon X & Y. Those were the first 3D graphic games in the Pokemon main line series.
So when I say 2D shiny, I’m giving it the weight of the original chances. Out of however many wild encounters I’ve had in this Heart Gold save so far (the 1 in 8,192 in not infallible as can be seen in many a shiny hunt run documented online), I found a shiny Growlithe. Unfortunately, I found a shiny Growlithe. A Pokemon that at base level knows the move Roar.
My chances were marred from the start.
If you look at the Serebii Pokedex listing for a Gen 4 Growlithe, you can scroll down to see a table that lists ever move a Growlithe in that generation knows, sorted by the level that it learns it at in descending order. The move Roar is listed second, shown as a move that the Pokemon knows at “birth”. In other words, a wild level 15 Growlithe in the fourth Generation is extremely likely to have Roar as one of the moves in its moveset of four. Roar, as defined by its Battle Effect: “The foe is scared off, to be replaced by another Pokémon in its party. In the wild, the battle ends.”
—
Currently, I’m feeling a lot better about it. I’ll probably plan to shiny hunt another in an act of petty revenge for the original full odds shiny that I lost. But that one I found is completely lost forever. I don’t think I could even recreate it now via RNG manipulation or editing, since I wouldn’t know it’s stats. It is gone into the ether.
I hate to admit it but I cried LMAO
“Cat why would you cry over it?” I mean, there’s a lot of reasons, small and large.\
For one, it was that “first” 2d, full odds shiny that I’d dreamed of. It was something that was only ever theoretically going to happen once. I really wanted to catch it. I even thought about just restarting my game, both just a restart back to my last save and also, more dramatically, the entire save file. I was pissed, and ranging from feelings of flabbergasted, to anguished, to amused. Like, of course this would happen.
I’ve already had a pretty miserable day.
I’m disabled, which is its own whole future blog post, but essentially I suffer from severe joint and nerve pain daily. I am on a high dosage of Gabapentin I take daily, and the latest pain relief measure my Pain Management doctor has ordered for me are Trigger Point Injections.
A Trigger Point Injection, put simply, is an injection made at a point of pain a person has. It can be done with or without an actual injection of a substance. I’m not actually sure which of the pain relief medications were used in my injection, but the first shot worked. I received it in my lower back, right in the sacral region. I felt nothing there, which is something I haven’t experienced in about 6 years now. It was like a miracle. So for the next injection I wanted to see if I could also get it in my upper back regions, which were still in pain while my lower back wasn’t.
I tried to ask during the appointment for the second injection if I could get multiple, and a miscommunication occurred.
It’s funny, Alex mentioned to me that he wanted to speak up during the exchange but he thought I understood when the doctor said he could spread it out wherever. I didn’t explain clearly that I was asking if I could get multiple full doses up along my back, and I didn’t understand the doctors reply meant that he could inject a full dose in parts wherever I wanted.
In retrospect, at least I learned that it wouldn’t work, but the shitty part about it is that I’m in severe pain in the areas I got the injections in now and the pain relief medication didn’t work at all. Life really is all about fucking around and finding out, even if it happens on accident.
I had the injections on 7/9/26, so exactly one week ago. The past three days I’ve had pretty severe pain upon moving around, leaving me figuratively bed bound to try and stave off aggravating it worse. It really doesn't help that my cat Mac seems to have had a hairball stuck in his throat the past few days.
—
I was feeling my normal amount of pain this morning actually, a huge upgrade from the severe pain I awoke in yesterday that left me practically immobile. But this morning was better! I got up and fed the cats, even adding a little coconut oil to Macs food bowl to see if it would help him pass the hairball. A half hour later, Mac was gagging on top of his cat tree.
I rushed to move him so he wouldn’t projectile vomit all over our DVD/Blu-ray shelving and Alex’s Playstation 4 console. I tried to make it so that his vomit would be aiming in his cat tree, but unfortunately he vomited all over the windowsill and blinds. Still, a better option than the original path, but also not ideal in any sense. Alex came over as he heard my exclamations while I held Mac. He had just started a work meeting, which unfortunately he had to cancel attending due to having to clean up the mess for me.
One thing I’m still struggling with in my disabled life is my limits. It seems like my body rolls a roulette wheel every morning I wake up. Am I going to feel okay? Am I going to have a new, mysterious pain occur? Am I going to be able to do what I want or need to do today? It’s almost like RNG akin to how Pokemon encounters work as a game feature. It’s tiring, but I am incredibly lucky to have a partner who is able to help me. He has a job that can be done from home, with a big enough salary that we don’t have to worry about money as much as others would in this situation of a singular income household. He has a calm temperament, and is willing to help me. It didn’t dampen the sour feelings of uselessness I felt though, just watching him clean up the vomit as he told me to rest so I wouldn’t aggravate my injury (Jokes on us just manhandling Mac aggravated my injury so it was doomed either way.)
Yesterday was actually our 9th anniversary of being together. I’ve lived almost a third of my life with him now, and almost as long being disabled. It is hard, and I worry every day about what could happen if we weren’t together anymore, but life currently is good, as ideal as it could be with my disability. It’s another reason why restarting my Heart Gold save to play with him meant so much to me, and why that shiny Growlithe meant extra to me.
—
So much of my life since moving out of my parents house and moving in with Alex’s mom and then eventually him has felt like being a toddlers Play-Doh. Not only physically being reshaped and molded constantly, but also mentally as I live my life outside of the sphere of influence of my family. I am currently no contact with my immediate family, which has its own muddy pros and cons, but is necessary for now.
I feel as though there is the time frames of BA and AA to my life: Before Alex and After Alex. Living with my family and moving out. Restarting my save was a solid marker of letting go of something from BA and embracing the joys of AA. After such a rotten morning and week overall, that chime that rang out to indicate the shiny encounter truly lifted my spirits. In my mind, it was as divine message that I was on the right path. A sign that the things I’ve been doing to better myself and work towards being an improved person were correct. Yes I know it’s dramatic but I can’t even begin to describe the feelings I felt looking down at the little, yellow, tiger dog on my console screen. I funnily enough was going to name it Alex even, since my boyfriend also happens to be blonde and I thought it would be cute.
I didn’t immediately cry after the encounter ended. It took me a good hour of mulling on what it had meant to me and my feelings about it to really grieve the loss of the shiny Growlithe. I customized one of my PC Boxes in-game with the Volcano wallpaper and named it “Hell”, where Blathers is now forced to sit and think about how badly he fucked up. Even in my grief, I continuously thought that it was hilarious to have happened. It’s a much better conclusion to losing the shiny than if it just fainted or ran away. I’ve stopped crying by now as I’ve worked on this post, but I’m probably not going to pick up the game for the rest of the day and let myself mourn my first 2D shiny. Like mentioned earlier, I know I’ll attempt to shiny hunt it again on that route, as an act of revenge in a weird sort of way. Like, “You’re not going to get away from me! I won’t give up!”
And in that way it feels like a metaphor for all the hard work and experiences I’ve had to endure to get to where I am now in my mental and physical health journey. I know this read was probably messy and a bit disjointed, and I will go back to edit it a little, but I at least want to explain (if only to myself) why I sobbed for a good half hour over a shiny Growlithe using Roar on me. I may have lost the chance to catch my first official 2D shiny, but I can catch another one, and others. I just gotta keep waking up and rolling with the RNG life tosses me.