October 10th: The Day I Actually Had the Idea to Write Things Down

- Defeated the tail-stealing Team Rocket guys. Defeated Executive Proton's last Pokemon while switching between four of my own Pokemon.
- Failed Bugsy's gym because the Scyther got a crit on Sync III and all my other Pokemon were underleveled. Baffled. Embarrasing. I guess I need to respect Bug-type Pokemon now.
- During that battle, Gorb took on the Kakuna and managed to win despite the significant level disadvantage.
- Immediately went in for a second attempt and got the badge with no major hassle.
- Shortly after, the egg finally hatched and I had my Togepi.
> Hatched: GEMINI [M]
- Had the idea to take notes about the playthrough.
- Grinding on Route 33. I feel like I always wind up grinding here for some reason.
- Peep found a Shiny Leaf on Route 33.
- In the Azalea Town rival fight, Peep managed to take down Croconaw. Took a hit down to 1hp before landing a final ThunderShock.
- Ilex forest, caught an Oddish.
> Caught: SPROUTS [M]
- Got the Cut HM, now A Rat! has two HMs applied. Hopefully I keep it to just that and Rock Smash on her.
- Got out of Ilex. First trainer battle on Route 34 got Peep her first evolve.
> PEEP: Mareep -> Flaaffy
- Ended in Goldenrod City.

I'm glad I decided to try some new Pokemon. I've really grown to appreciate Peep and I'm surprised that I actually kind of like having A Rat! around. I realize now that putting exclamation points at the ends of names is a bad idea because of how the game will put an exclamation point after the names in certain dialog boxes ("Go, A RAT!!"). I'm more on the fence about Gorb, mostly because he doesn't have the moves to deal lots of damage. He has Curse now, though. My approach to Pokemon battles has essentially always been Blitzkrieg. Little to no status-applying moves used, just deal enough damage fast enough to take victory, hopefully with minimal losses. I think this means I should actually double down on keeping Gorb in the party, working him into a role of almost exclusively supporting moves.

Super! is really slow for some reason (probably just an IV and species thing), but I still like having him around. I said I'd go with 'mons that I hadn't considered previously and Wooper is basically the opposite of that, but not egregiously so. Most of my time spent with Woopers and Quagsires was actually in Sword. Sword is the only mainline Pokemon game I've played all the way through thusfar. Not having to grind anywhere near as much as in SoulSilver probably helped. Gemini is kind of taking a backseat for the moment, as I'm trying to open up the path to get back to Violet Town and backtrack to easier lands to train him up and get more friendship stats with him. Also, Wade keeps calling about some berries he wants to gift me and I'd like to take him up on the offer.