Meanwhile, Pokémon Sword: In which a heroic and adorable Scottish Pokémon trainer is forced by immutable circumstance to cruelly shatter the hopes, dreams, and ambitions of her two best friends, one after the other, in front of 100,000 screaming pokésportsball fans. (And who knows how many more watching on TV.)

It's brutal, absolutely brutal. Neither a fledgling attachment born in preliminary competition nor childhood friendship counts for anything under the white-hot but comfortless glare of the stadium lights. In the grim darkness of the Galar Premier League, there is only war.

I weep for Syd as I would for a sister. Forced to discard love in the relentless search for victory--a victory whose significance she doesn't understand. She doesn't know why she must win at such cost. She knows only that she needs. But like so many of us, she does not know what.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.