[holds up one hand to signal a pause in our impassioned duel] look i can see you staring at my chest okay? you're making this weird. if you can't keep your eyes off of my huge tits then at least grab them and use them against me like the huge soft warm bouncy weak spots that they are
The fey seem to be active tonight. I saw the sky painted in green on my nightly patrol, and such occurrences could only be caused by wild fey magic. I know not what they are doing, but hopefully it won't spell too much trouble for the good folk of the castle.
Though I know the threat they pose, I cannot help but admire the beauty of their spells. I will not follow the green silk, my oath keeps me grounded here, but I understand why folk get lost in the light
Pen's clockwork had never twisted before. Sometimes it skipped, causing it to choke and collapse, its limbs seizing up until its witch could repair it, but it had never experienced a twist. Something was wrong.
Up down turn, up down.
Most dolls weren't made with engines, manufacturers and witches preferring more efficient and versatile options like direct magical power. Pen was a very archaic doll, however, made in a time before such spells were invented. It took a lot of pride in its age, being passed down from witch to witch.
Up down turn, up twist down. Up twist down twist turn twist-
A wave of revulsion fills it. Dizziness. It wasn't designed to experience dizziness..
"Miss!! Miss!" it managed to crackle out, holding onto a wall for support. It barely manages to catch a view of her hurrying towards it before everything goes dark.
Turn. BEEP.
Turn. BEEP.
Turn. BEEP.
Turn. BEEP.
Its eyelids slide open, but everything feels off. One of its legs is numb. Its engine sounds.. wrong.
..looking down, there's a hole in its chest, an unfitting metallic device attached to it with dozens of wires snaking down to.. a.. heart monitor?
"Oh, good morning. Are you awake?"
An unfamiliar man is sitting in a chair on the other side of the room, staring at it. This isn't its witch's mansion. Something must be terribly wrong. His suit is white, gaudy, with a yellow dress shirt and white tie. When he gets up off the chair, it notices his cufflinks - stylized eyes.
"Where.. is this one? Where is its witch? What is happening?"
"Your engine failed."
It stiffens, expression shifting imperceptibly.
"So.. this one is dead." it says, tersely.
"Oh, heavens no! You were submitted to a care ward. That-" he says, pointing at the device in its chest- "Is a fake engine. You would need it to power you in the meantime."
"Where is its witch? Is she ok?"
"Your witch is fine, just worried. Don't fret about that." he gently says, putting his hand on the back of its head. It flinches away and glares at him, causing him to hold his hands up as a symbol of peace. Those cufflinks almost seem to stare back at Pen.
"Where is this one."
"Safe, why?"
"WHERE."
He looks away uncomfortably.
"Well, where do you think?"
"Well.. this one is in a hospital, yes?"
"There you go. Your words, not mine."
Something was odd about the way he spoke. Pen couldn't put its finger on it.
"What hospital?"
"Mn.. Just, try to rest, ok? I have some paperwork I'd rather you sign so I can send you on your way."
The man produces a clipboard from inside of his jacket. Pen manages to catch something staring back at it before he quickly buttons it shut again. He offers Pen the clipboard, and it sighs and places it on the table beside it.
"This one would rather.. rest, for now. If that's alright."
He looks surprised, but quickly hides it with a smile.
"Of course. I'll check in with you later." he says, stepping out of the room and shutting the door quietly.
my liege. everyone knows that a torrential downpour like this is the optimal conditions to suffer a crisis of moral integrity and fortitude and emerge from it spiritually wounded but to cover that wound by self-destructively renewing your loyalty to the first person to ever express both respect and lust towards you. i am NOT simply 'moping'
so unfortunately i got pretty deep into my response here but my pc crashed yay :thumbsup:. so i'm so sorry for how abbreviated this opening is going to sound. i'm doing my best here okay.
gym leaders are tricky to measure because they're both characters and gameplay challenges and i'm interested in comparing them as both. for the purposes of these rankings ive prioritized gameplay interest, becuase otherwise it would just be a list in order of how badly the fox in me wants to do perverse things to various lady gym leaders, which is, checks smudged notes on palm: bad, for some reason.
how much i like each gym leader as a character is still very important here and i'll talk about them in that framing as well. so don't worry!
anyway; pokemon games arent really hard regardless so the framing i'm going to be using is through the hardcore nuzlocke, where relevant rules are: 1 encounter per route, don't overlevel the gym leader's ace, and if something faints it's dead and can't be used again. i'm also going to be assuming playing on set mode because that does make Pokemon much harder by itself.
my methodology here was to examine every generation's gym leaders (alola kahunas count) and pick my favorites from each gen, then narrow those down to 5. unfortunately, when i'm focusing so hard on gameplay, a lot of generations just kind of don't have interesting challenges to pose to you, sadly? so i wound up with a somewhat narrow selection. and also i bent the rules a little. sue me.
okay. that's enough preamble let's get autistic
5: RAIHAN (Galar League)
Raihan sucks, but he sucks in that infuriatingly fun way to hate. Like he has this smug too-cool-for-you attitude that makes me want to kick him in the shins, but at the same time I know he would actually be there for me if something Actually Happened, which honestly just pisses me off even more. He rules in the worst way. It's awesome.
Raihan was the most threatening fight of the Sw/Sh soullink i did a while back, and his team really showcases how different the threat profile is in double battles. Even though he isn't abusing the kinds of strategies you might expect - his team isn't as "elegant" as, say, Tate & Liza's, with the Levitate Earthquake spam and dual screens - between the much stronger Pokemon being fielded and the nature of their movesets, this is a very hard fight to plan for, due to how many angles the threats can come from. Sure, you can oneshot Flygon with an ice move, but how confident are you that you won't lose that Pokemon from Gigalith Rock Blast? What's your out if you get Sand Tombed and can't switch? And be really careful about which of Duraludon's DMax moves you bait; Steelspike and Knuckle's secondary effects can upset your line and take things out of control very quickly.
Sw/Sh wasn't really that hard of a game overall, except this fight, which was actually really fun to route for, and very satisfying to execute. The movesets here are menacing enough that I doubt it's a pushover even for casual players, which is always fun to see.
4: CLAIR (Johto League)
GSC and HGSS are, rightfully, regarded as some of the easiest games in the franchise. Despite that, there are a handful of encounters you do need to take seriously. Clair is one of those.
There's a few things we need to discuss about Gold and Silver, to understand why Clair is so scary. Firstly, this is pre-Physical/Special Split (PSS), so all Ice-type attacks are special attacks; this means that even though you just went through Ice Path, most of the encounters there are useless to you. Delibird just doesn't do anything, and Sneasel and Swinub both have terrible Special Attack, with Powder Snow being their only Ice moves anyway. Your only way to hit these Dragonairs super-effectively is with Ice Punch, either learned by levelup from the 10% Jynx in Ice Path, or - more likely - by teaching it via TM purchased from the Goldenrod Department Store.
The thing is, unless you have STAB on that Ice Punch, Dragonair is bulky enough that you are probably going to have to settle for a 2HKO, which gives them time to paralyze you and whittle you down with Slam and Dragonbreath. If you're using Feraligatr or Lapras, you have to watch out for Thunderbolt. If you're using Quagsire you will take meaningful damage from Surf and Ice Beam. Even if you manage to tank enough damage to muscle past all three Dragonairs, you are very likely to need to switch out of the Kingdra, giving away your momentum and allowing it to either massively chunk something with STAB Surf, or to set up a Smokescreen, and from there you're already behind on tempo.
Kingdra is extremely annoying in every fight where it appears; it has only one weakness, and that weakness is hard to abuse even in modern games, but what were you even going to use in Gen II - Twister? Your only reliable way past this stupid thing is to muscle it down with neutral STAB moves, which gives it plenty of time to paralyze you with Dragonbreath and stall with Smokescreen, while you remain haunted by the specter of that Hyper Beam in the back that's ready to punish you for staying in battle just a little bit too long.
The HGSS version of this fight is even worse; Clair trades one of her Dragonairs for a Gyarados lead - so you probably don't want to lead with your Ice Beam user, which means you need to switch in your Ice Beamer and take an attack from one of the Dragonairs, and you may not know which one it is until it hits you, so how sure are you that the switch is safe? - while also giving them much stronger moves: one has Aqua Tail, the other has Fire Blast, and all of her pokemon have Dragon Pulse. There's an Avalanche TM in Ice Path, and given how much it benefits from PSS, that might lure you into thinking that Piloswine is a good idea here. Incorrect. You get absolutely wasted by the Dragonairs' coverage moves, and are very likely to get KO'd by the second before you can hit it, even if you manage to switch in on a Thunder Wave - god help you if you switch in on a Fire Blast instead!
When you do beat her, Clair is in disbelief. I'd understand if you thought of her little tantrum as childish, but I empathize with her. She feels a lot of pressure to live up to the success of her sublimely talented older cousin, and I know what it's like to lose when you're under that kind of pressure. Losses happen to everybody, but they can't happen to you. You can't handle a setback like that. The gap you've been fighting so hard to close just gets another mile wider. It feels like everything you've worked for has been rendered totally meaningless. If you lost once - it can just happen again, next year, next week, or even tomorrow. And what will you be then?
Given all of that, and how gut-wrenching I know that feeling is… it means a lot to me that, even if she had to get scolded first, she did eventually acknowledge you and hand over the badge of her own will. I like to ask myself whether, years later, she ever found her stride, or slipped out from underneath Lance's shadow. I like to think that she did.
3: ELESA (Unova League)
So here's the thing about gym leaders. You know what type they use; you generally have the opportunity to scour the area for something that's strong against that type before you challenge them. When you know you're facing an Electric gym, you know you want a Ground type. Right?
Elesa has already gotten ahead of the curve by fielding two Electric/Flying Emolga, who are immune to Ground and have totally different weakness profiles. Not a problem if you can bring in a traditional Rock/Ground type, but Unova doesn't have any of those; your options for Ground are Palpitoad (Water/Ground) and Sandile (Ground/Dark), and your options for Rock are Dwebble (Bug/Rock, so you don't even resist Aerial Ace) and Boldore (mono-Rock). Worse, if you haven't fought Elesa in a while (or ever), you probably look at the Emolgas and think "well they're glorified Rattatas, how scary could they possibly be?" before getting chunked for 40% or more from one of their STAB moves. Also: did you really need to give them Pursuit!?
So what are your outs? Sandile needs Intimidate in order to 1v1 any of Elesa's Pokemon, and even then, it's not a favorable 1v1; everything outspeeds you, and you only have a chance to 2HKO the Emolgas with Bite if you have good IVs and a +Atk nature, and even then, the odds are still pretty bad. Even if you do win the 1v1, you're probably out of the fight from then on, because Emolga chunks you for up to 40% without Intimidate. The best Sandile can do is maybe come in on a Zebstrika Volt Switch and return a 2HKO with the Dig TM you found on your way here.
Palpitoad has a much better matchup here, soaking all of Zebstrika's moves and 1v1ing one Emolga, but Aerial Ace is such a scary move that you still can only handle one of them before getting chunked to dangerous HP. You are arguably better off ignoring Ground types entirely and utilizing neutral moves or whatever Rock types you found to KO the Emolgas instead, but good luck catching them before they Volt Switch away from you. You need to make great use of every single point of HP, and keep a very close watch on all of Elesa's options, if you want to navigate this fight without losing anything.
Black and White has a ton of scary gym leaders. Elesa comes after Retaliate Watchog at a point where you're just barely getting access to your first evolutions, which is absolutely diabolical; right after Elesa is Clay's monstrous Hone Claws Excadrill, which can devastate your entire team if you give it even one chance to boost its Attack, assuming it can't just 2HKO you outright as you try to reposition around it. I like Elesa because she's pretty, because she has some gay subtext with Skyla (we take what we can get, okay), but also because the type weaknesses she presents you with and the unsuspecting power of her team is a stark wake-up call to anyone who was already unaware of just how difficult Black and White can be as games. She can, and will, and has, beat the shit out of you even on a normal playthrough. I just think that's neat.
2: FLANNERY (Hoenn League)
But listen. No, listen, really. What's worse than presenting an unexpected weakness profile, and taking advantage of the resulting bad matchup? What if your Pokemon just didn't have any weaknesses at all?
Speaking of unsuspecting power and wake up calls, have you ever lost a Marshtomp to sun-boosted Overheat? Because if you are not careful, Flannery will absolutely show you what that feels like.
With credit to PChal for making me aware: this team is absolutely diabolical in its design. Her Ruby and Sapphire (and ORAS) team is the same idea but less potent; Flannery really shines in Emerald, where you absolutely need to land all three OHKOs on her early Pokemon with as much confidence as possible, because if any of them get to use their support moves, that Torkoal is going to be nearly unkillable.
Torkoal has three weaknesses: Rock, Ground, and Water. Remember, Emerald is pre-PSS; so the first two weaknesses are to Physical types, and Torkoal can just sponge those with its massive Defense stat. The last is Special, and since Torkoal's Sp.Def is much worse, that makes an obvious point to target, except for Sunny Day rendering it effectively "neutral", and - god forbid you let it go off - Slugma's Light Screen turning it effectively into a "resistance".
If you have a Marshtomp, this gym doesn't seem so bad. You've got Water Gun which hits Numel and Camerupt for 4x, and Mud Shot which is still potent even under sun, right, so the first three should be a breeze! Exceeept that Camerupt lives both of your STAB moves unless you crit, and Slugma actually survives Water Gun, so you better be careful which moves you're clicking, and you better hope Camerupt doesn't Attract or Sunny Day on the turn it's allowed to live.
But let's assume that that all goes fine; Camerupt somehow misses Attract or something and you go into Torkoal with no Sun, no Screen, and at full HP. Great! You hit Water Gun. Torkoal takes, I dunno, 32%. She uses Sunny Day. Wuh oh.
Even at max IVs, Marshtomp only has about coinflip odds to 3HKO, though of course that's ignoring Flannery's Hyper Potions. Meanwhile, once she has Sun up, Overheat is a guaranteed 2HKO, because don't forget about that White Herb she's holding. If you go into Torkoal with Sun already up - you absolutely lose the 1v1 and are just dead outright to a crit. If you go into Torkoal and get Attracted, you need to switch something into possibly the most threatening attack in the game to this point, or just stay in with coin flip odds to do nothing every turn while Torkoal bashes you with Overheat, and don't think that it's no longer threatening just because the White Herb is gone and it's at -2 Sp.Atk; Body Slam still does around 25% to Marshtomp and has that 30% chance to paralyze, meaning she can absolutely just stall you to death if you failed to KO her outright.
And that's assuming you have Marshtomp, arguably the best counter to this fight that's available. What if you didn't pick Marshtomp? What are you fielding, pre-PSS Azumarill? What other options do you even have?
I don't think Flannery is the hardest Gym Leader on this list, to be clear - but I love the kind of challenge she poses. There's a clear threat, and you need to plan around that clear threat. You can't just ignore the rest of her team, because if you execute poorly in the first three Pokemon, that Torkoal becomes much scarier; however, if you look at what Torkoal can do, and look at your available options carefully, you're sure to find a way through, and that's very satisfying to pull off.
Also, obviously, I love Flannery, she's cute and pretty and adorable. No further explanation required.
Extremely honorable mentions to Erika, Sabrina, Winona, Tate & Liza, Valerie, and like fully half of the Sw/Sh and Scarlet and Violet league casts, who are all absolutely phenomenal.
It's not a contest, but unfortunately, it is a contest, and there is someone much, much cuter than Flannery…
1: LACEY (Blueberry League)
"That's not a gym leader! She's an elite four member!" Literally who cares. Look at her. Do you want to expand the scope of this list to include Elite 4 members? Shout out to Lorelei, Karen, Glacia, Steven, Lucian, Cynthia, Kahili, Rika, Larry, and of course Nemona, but sadly all of them still lose to Lacey. Look at this shit. Look at her smile. And then look at her stop smiling. This girl is already one of the Pokemon world's most talented trainers and she is only going to get stronger from here. You and everyone else should be terrified. Look At This Shit.
Remember how I said Raihan showed off how difficult double battles can be, even though his team wasn't every "elegant"?
There's just so much going on here. The Focus Sash Prankster Tailwind/Light Screen Whimsicott, which gives all of her otherwise somewhat slow Pokemon a massive boost to their speed; the Liquid Voice Throat Spray Primarina that is blasting both of your Pokemon with Hyper Voice; the Recover and Giga Drain tanking Alcremie that threatens to Decorate any of Lacey's devatasting attackers; Tera Fairy Assault Vest Excadrill????
Yes, okay, I know that the whole point of the Indigo Disk DLC is to be an ultra-hard postgame DLC designed to challenge VGC players in a postgame environment where raising VGC-ready Pokemon is notoriously easy. So what? I think it's incredibly hot of Lacey to have optimized Natures, EVs, and IVs -- and I mean fully optimized, down to the 0 ATK IV that's become so common in response to Foul Play - but we can put that aside, because it's safe to assume that even in a nuzlocke the player would similarly bring EV trained threats to combat Lacey's team. The fact that this is The Difficulty DLC just further cements to me that we need to consider her and her peers at the BB League. If I care that much about difficulty, then this ranking demands an answer to the question: who do I think is the hardest Gym Leader in the whole series?
Well. If you'll permit me to count her as one, then that would be Lacey.
Amarys's team suffers from a lack of focus; the Trick Room gimmick has antisynergy with Dugtrio and can hurt Empoleon as much as it helps, and Occa Berry Scizor isn't helping her crippling weakness to Fire, but like, even putting that aside, I brought a snow team to Indigo Disk and did not have trouble with Amarys, Amarys, the Steel specialist, was unable to scare me as a snow user, okay? She has a lot of work to do. Crispin's team was at least a lot of fun but without a Drought 'mon he solidly lost the weather war, and his team just isn't that scary without access to the Sun; I have a lot of respect for Harvest Leech Seed Exeggutor, but that's a Singles strat. Where on earth are your Eruptions?
Drayton is really Lacey's only meaningful competition. Multiscale Yache Dragonite is a pretty scary Tailwind setter, and Sash DD Haxorus is a really fun idea; but his most dangerous offensive Pokemon are easily exploited on their poor defenses, and his support Pokemon pack very underwhelming offenses. He should have skipped all the preamble and just went straight to Kingdra/Archaludon, and built everything up as a Rain team around that - that's the part that's actually scary, but even then, only because I didn't know what the fuck Electro Shot did, sorry, my bad.
I won't deny that Lacey tops this list because she's my favorite character, and like, okay, MAYBE it takes some bias for me to claim that she has the scariest team in the BB League; however, I do think it's the most well-crafted, and the most exciting to fight. Crispin's whole deal is very one-dimensional and kind of falls apart if you control the weather; Drayton's Tailwind can get denied by even a mid-speed Taunt, and his Dragonite can be just left on the field because its offense simply isn't that threatening comparatively (no STAB); his type diversity is very poor and his team folds almost completely to sufficiently powerful Ice moves, especially given the way that he Teras Archaludon out of a great starting type in Steel/Dragon.
Lacey has a strong opening gambit with Intimidate Tailwind-boosted Granbull, and Prankster Tailwind is much harder to deny; she's got Light Screen to mitigate her weakness to Sludge Wave, Slowbro who effectively walls Poison moves and threatens back with Psychic, and a half-dozen Fire and Ground moves to punish you for careless use of your Steel-types. Every Pokemon on her team commands respect both as an individual threat, and as part of a larger strategy. If you go into her prepared, it's more than winnable; it's not really that difficult to plan a line with true endgame resources from Scarlet and Violet. But if anything goes wrong, if you are even slightly careless, or even just because you get unlucky - she decides she doesn't fuck with you and procs Quick Draw three times in a row - Lacey's fight can rapidly spiral out of control. You are going to breathe a sigh of relief when it's over.
God. Please scroll up and look at that gif again. Lacey rules so hard. I love her.
