telescopic sight

Your damage is that you are a (cycling-link:'boy','girl') who wants to be one of the (cycling-link:'girls','boys') . You want to play like a (cycling-link:'boy','pokemon trainer'), you want to be the very best, like no (cycling-link:'girl','one') ever was.

(align:"<==")+(box:"=XXXX")[(text-size:0.8)[(text-colour:black)[You play Telescopic Sight for 30 extra damage. Your damage is that you are a] (cycling-link:'boy','girl')(text-colour:black)[ who wants to play this game like one of the ](cycling-link:'girls','boys')(text-colour:black)[. You want to be the very best, like no] (cycling-link:'girl','boy','one')(text-colour:black)[ ever was. Who do you attach your Telescopic sight to?] [[Magneton]] [[Haunter]] [[Yourself]] [[That's enough card games for today.|Start]] ]]

(align:"<==")+(box:"=XXXX")[ [[Telescopic Sight]] ]

Maybe I am a Magnaton - boy, girl and something else snapped together. It was a holographic and I traded it away for a bunch of bulbasaurs and charmanders probably. Take 30 extra damage. There must be a card in this game where the more damage you take, the more health you get back. Or maybe that's Magic the gathering.

(text-colour:black)[(text-size:0.8)[Your cousin comes over after school and brings with him all of his Pokémon cards. You are excited because you finally have something to offer him — you are only four months younger, but he is the third of four boy cousins, so four months feels like four years between you. You ask your cousin if he wants to play a few rounds of the card game with you — he laughs and says no. He wants to [(text-colour:red)[trade.]]<c1| (click:?c1)[He asks you to show him your deck, and your nervous excitement distills into nervous sweat. You want to meet him on his level but when he points out your holographic Magneton you want to hide it. He offers you more cards than you've ever been traded before, more than your last booster pack, more than your parents have said they will buy you again. You need to [(text-colour:red)[phone a friend.]]<c2| ] (click:?c2)[You call your best friend on the family phone and lay out the trade. You ask him if you should go through with it. You don't trust your cousin that much, but you trust yourself even less. You trust your friend though, and he says "Yeah, I think that sounds like an ok trade, but at the end of the day they're your cards, it's your decision." The last thing you want is for it to be your decision. But the first thing you want is for your cousin to like you, and the second is maybe an Eevee, or a Vulpix. Your cousin has (text-colour:red)[[[two of each.|Magneton 2]]]]] ]

(text-size:0.8)[(text-colour:black)[At school, you and your friend Andy play the Pokémon card game during lunchtime. Neither of you understand how the card game really works, and especially when it comes to energy cards. You are not friends with Andy in the same way that you are friends with Sophie — you don’t let him borrow your Winnie the Pooh eraser, you don’t let him braid your hair or swap snacks at playlunch. When Sophie asks if Andy is your friend you say “No”, and it comes out quickly. But you’ll still go and meet him every other lunchtime, at the dead tree by cricket nets, to [(text-colour:red)[act out the moves]]<c4| of friendship nonetheless. (click:?c4)[The fact that neither you nor Andy actually know how to play the Pokémon card game doesn’t seem to matter — until Andy starts bringing Haunter to the table. Haunter has two moves you can play, Hypnosis and Dream Eater. First you hypnotise your opponent to sleep, and then eat their dreams for 50 damage. It’s an intoxicating one two punch, and one that’s meant to come with a price — 3 psychic energy cards, to be precise. The first time Andy plays the card, he decimates you. As he collects his cards to shuffle for the next game, grinning, you have to sit in the hollow feeling that this is unfair. And it is unfair, it is totally unfair. But you have only just turned ten, and you don’t understand that you can’t make an attack if you don’t have the energy to [ (text-colour:red)[pay for it]]<c5|.] (click:?c5)[You both pay for it though, because the game gets boring – as soon as the Haunter gets played, the battle is over. You could ban Andy from using the Haunter, but that doesn’t feel fair either, and also you want a go at feeling powerful. So you and Andy start making up new rules, because you already are, so why stop now? (text-colour:red)[Rule One] (click-replace:'Rule One')[(text-colour:black)[Rock paper scissors for the chance to play the Haunter.]] (text-colour:red)[Rule Two] (click-replace:'Rule Two') [(text-colour:black)[Once you have played one round with the Haunter, you have to rest it for the next. ]] (text-colour:red)[Rule Three] (click-replace:'Rule Three') [(text-colour:black)[As soon as the Haunter is drawn, the game is pretty much over. But you still have to play the battle out, to give the winning player a chance to savour their (text-colour:red)[[[inevitable victory|Haunter 2]]].]] ]]]

(align:"<==")+(box:"=XXXX")[(text-size:0.8)[(text-colour:black)[You play Thunderwave with Telescopic Sight for 60 damage. Your HP is 60. Your damage is that you are a Magneton — ](cycling-link:'girl','boy','the third Magnemite')(text-colour:black)[ snapped together, switching out around a center. You were something holographic but you traded that in for a handful of fluffy and cute. But you still like fluffy and cute so you can't bring yourself to say you regret it. You are hit with Earthquake for 100 damage.] [[You faint.|30 more damage]] ]]

(align:"<==")+(box:"=XXXX")[(text-size:0.8)[(text-colour:black)[You play Telescopic Sight for 30 extra damage. Your HP is 30. Your damage is that you are a girl. Or maybe you're not. Maybe it's easier to point to] (cycling-link:'girl', 'boy', 'Magneton', 'Haunter','Pokémon Trainer') (text-colour:black)[and say "that's what I am", rather than having to point to yourself and say "not a fucking clue, actually". The more you zoom in with your telescopic sight, the less clear it becomes. You turn the Telescopic Sight upon yourself, and take 30 points more damage.] [[You faint.|30 more damage]] ]]

(align:"<==")+(box:"=XXXX")[(text-size:0.8) [(text-colour:black)[Telescopic Sight Pokémon Tool: Attach a Pokémon Tool to 1 of your Pokémon that doesn't have a Pokémon Tool attached. The attacks of the Pokémon card this card is attached to do] [[30 more damage]](text-colour:black)[ to your opponent's Benched Pokémon V and Benched Pokémon-GX.] ]]

(align:"<==")+(box:"=XXXX")[(text-size:0.8)[(text-colour:black)[You play Dream Eater with Telescopic Sight for 30 extra damage. Your HP is 60. Your damage is that you are a Haunter — playing] (cycling-link:'Hypnosis', 'Dream Eater', 'yourself')(text-colour:black)[ until you get bored and give up. Making up your own game because you don't really understand the rules of this one, but somehow the game you've made has turned out to be even less satisfying. You are hit with Hydropump for 70 damage. ] [[You faint.|30 more damage]] ]]

(text-colour:black)[(text-size:0.8)[You find Telescopic Sight tucked inside a library book that someone had returned. You add it to the [(text-colour:red)[pile of things]]<c6| you've found in books and kept, that you sometimes like to bring out from where they live in your desk drawer. (click:?c6)[A bookmark of //Sunflowers// from the NGV. A birthday card //to Kayla, with lots of love from grandma//. A sheet of temporary tattoos, designed to look like vampire bites. You [(text-colour:red)[take them out.]]<c8| (click:?c8)[Lay them flat and try to read them, like tarot cards. Sometimes you ask a question. You have a question, but it's a question that feels too big for this small ritual. It's not the kind of question you can ask the cards instead of yourself — not birthday cards, not tarot cards, not Pokémon cards. To get an answer, a real answer, you're going to have to turn the telescopic lens [(text-colour:red)[inward.]]<c7|]] (click:?c7)[ [(text-colour:red)[Zoom In] (click-replace:'Zoom In')[(text-colour:black)[ No thank you I don't want to.]] (text-colour:red)[Zoom in] (click-replace:'Zoom in')[(text-colour:black)[I don't want to look at myself that closely.]] (text-colour:red)[zoom in ] (click-replace:'zoom in')[(text-colour:black)[I benched myself to protect myself, I don't have enough HP to take that damage.]] (text-colour:red)[zoom In] (click-replace:'zoom In')[(text-colour:black)[Okay, I am looking, but I don't want to say what I see.]] (text-colour:red)[z00m in ](click-replace:'z00m in') [(text-colour:black)[When I say what I see, I have to say what it means.]] (text-colour:red)[Zoom 1n] (click-replace:'Zoom 1n') [(text-colour:black)[Ok fine I don't think I'm a girl.]] (text-colour:red)[zOOM iN] (click-replace:'zOOM iN')[(text-colour:black)[ I don't think I'm a girl, but I don't know what else I could be.]] (text-colour:red)[zOOM IN] (click-replace:'zOOM IN') [(text-colour:black)[I don't think I'm a girl, but do think that I actually hate playing (text-colour:red)[[deck building games|Yourself 2]].] ]]]] ]