#tm wisdom

[tm-collection]

online safety lesson: if anyone suggests you can burn a tm onto an empty disk without using TRHEXplorer, just as a .mch file or god forbid a .exe file, that is malware. Outright destructive malware. There is no world in which that is not malware.

[tm-collection]

Genuine question, but what harm does a counterfeit TM pose? Wouldn't it just not work?

All depends on the counterfeit!

Some counterfeits are produced by genuine sellers who know what they're doing, and through a TR Scanner you can easily tell they're clean. No adverse effects on a Pokémon. This encompasses maybe 10% of all counterfeits.

The next most likely are the ones that just straight up don't function. You'll load them into a TR Scanner and they'll come up blank. About 10-15% of them fall here.

Then, we have what I call the oddities. TMs that are very clearly illegal for League Challenges, but aren't explicitly adverse for the Pokémon. Some examples I've found:

An Outrage TM that had a 75% chance to confuse, not guaranteed

A Vine Whip TM that had a chance to lower the opponent's Special Defense by 1 stage (not sure what the goal there was)

A Fire Spin TM that had a chance each turn to inflict BURN

and the list goes on.

Finally, the malware. TMs can either intentionally or unintentionally cause minor to severe damage to Pokémon, both temporary and chronic.

In the case of negligent malware, Silph Co., for instance, had an issue with the TM Counter about 25 years ago, where mons who thought they had successfully landed a counter would be stuck still, and some even suffered seizures. I know someone with a disabled Chansey who had to deal with that.

As for predatory malware is compatibility malware. Hyper Beam should NEVER be taught to a Weedle, their bodies cannot handle the stress. I have personally, recently, seen one's horn severely damaged when it was told to use it.

Finally, there's the outright evil. Malicious malware, like the one created by Team Plasma about 15 years ago, causes the Pokémon to be incapable of developing Friendship... which, in turn, isolated them from not only other trainers, but Pokémon as well.

In short: if you're going to go second market, be safe, get a TR Scanner or two, and by god, do not get anything from Silph Co.

[tm-collection]

TM advice: some TMs are, for some reason, incompatible with Pokémon who can learn them as egg moves! It's not entirely clear as to why, but it certainly is worth looking into for breeders or league trainers.

A good example is the move Flutter Bomb, which not normally learned by Ribombee, nor is it capable via TM, but a baby Cutiefly can spring out of the egg with Flutter Bomb already known!

(also if anyone wants a copy of Flutter Bomb it's a REALLY interesting new move out of Kalos, the first hit is Flying type and the second is Fairy. 35 BP. got a couple copies as part of a promotion)

[tm-collection]

re: misprints from devon corp, pokéball factory, casteliacorp, dazzlers, and other tm companies vs. silph co.

there has not been a single instance of any of these other companies having malware level attacks on a pokémon's mental or physical health without intention. there are tm errors and there's what silph does on the regular. i'm personally convinced the team rocket takeover happened not by force but by board room white collar crime that was already occurring behind the scenes. screw silph co.

[tm-collection]

here's another tip by the way: if the TM name and description seem suspect, it could be malware designed to hurt your pokémon. i've seen this on a lot of bootleg markets, where they get mixed in with the regular ones; i saw a "galarian tr for flamethrower" which had the description that it had a 20% chance to burn and 95% accuracy, which... did not sound right. after a cursory check through my reader, it proved to have a package that would lock the mon's heart like team snagem was doing back in orre.

another one, which is before a lot of your times (and, to be honest, before mine) was the silph co counter recall about 25 years back. they printed defective copies of the move which could lead to your pokémon thinking it had succeeded in using the move, when in reality the opponent's pokémon was completely untouched, potentially even leading to seizures. how this passed by their staff is beyond me. the ceo that oversaw this is now their ceo again, and has been for 15 years.

...bonus tip: don't trust silph co as far as you can throw them. they have a monopoly over kanto, don't let them spread further. sorry, kanto.