It's like visual poetry. Do you enjoy poetry, Raozya?
—Joas, regarding an instance of rather brutal poetic justice.
Pickles and Depredation is a series of humorous Pokémon fanfics written by FanFiction.Net user Nuclear Cookoutnote . The series revolves around Raozya, an aspiring Pokémon Trainer who is obsessed with victory and pickles. The only thing in his way seems to be the entire planet, since all he ever receives is humiliation and encounters with people who would be better suited for an insane asylum. His team of Pokémon is no better, notably his sadistic and impish Espurr, Joas.
Along with exaggerated and reinterpreted characters, the series has several references to other franchises such as Psycho-Pass and The Matrix.
Currently has three installations:
The series contains examples of:
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The second story has one of these being used for escape.
- Action Bomb: Raozya's Eevee, Salvo learns Self-Destruct, allowing him to detonate like a demolition bomb at will. Bear in mind that Eevee are supposed to be incapable of learning this move. He learned it by sheer willpower.
- Adorable Abomination: Joas is already powerful and cute as an Espurr, but his ability to plunge his opponents into a nightmare realm of Cthulhu ripoffs puts him firmly within the "abomination" category.
- Affectionate Parody: For Pokémon.
- Alliterative Name: Raozya's full name is Rozza Reyo Raozya.
- Anthropomorphic Food: Raozya's Swirlix, Screampuff. It might as well be cotton candy.
- Anti-Hero: Joas isn't necessarily malevolent, but he doesn't pull his punches when in a battle. Raozya could also count as this, since one of his goals is to use modified Poké Balls to capture other Trainers.
- Amusing Injuries: Befitting of Pokémon, most injuries are treated with humor or are otherwise not life-threatening, like being shot through a building by a Flamethrower attack.
- Animate Inanimate Object: Raozya's Honedge, Cutstab. It's essentially a haunted sword.
- Badass Adorable: Pokémon in general are powerful enough, and the Espurr species exceptionally so, but Joas could count as an eldritch abomination.
- Badass Crew: Raozya and his team.
- Barrier-Busting Blow: The Team Flare grunts display strength that is undeniably inhuman.
- Battle Aura: When angry, Joas is often seen surrounded by a glowing purple energy field.
- Big Fun: Tierno is quite the hefty riot, what with his near-psychotic obsession with dancing and food.
- Bland-Name Product: The Play Cube 360 Advanced, and the popular game Call of Modern Battlefield 8.
- Blown Across the Room: ...And through several skyscrapers. Sufficiently-powered Flamethrower attacks can be quite a sight.
- Brutal Honesty: Joas has no filter on his speech.
- Burger Fool: Lard Trough. The mere name makes Joas worry about long-term heart problems.
- Character Exaggeration: Tierno is depicted as a tech genius with an unhealthy obsession for dancing and junk food.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Tierno, with his obsession for interpretive dance and odd junk food.
- Comedic Sociopathy: Joas is this to most other life forms he encounters. The world is this to Raozya.
- The Cynic: Joas is a living embodiment of cynicism, to the point of being a source of comedy.
- Deadpan Snarker: Both Raozya and Joas get in on this, but more so for the latter.
- The Determinator: Raozya isn't about to give up on his journey to become the world's greatest Pokémon Trainer and world's first owner of Poké Ball-captured humans, no matter what the planet throws at him.
- Disintegrator Ray: The Domination stun gun can do this if its internal computer deems you a dangerous enough threat.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Joas seldom hesitates to annihilate the minds (or bodies) of Pokémon that challenge him.
- Down L.A. Drain: Camphrier Town has an extensive network of large drainage canals.
- Eldritch Abomination: Joas is already powerful, being an Espurr, but he has also exhibited the ability to warp reality when angry. By his account, albeit possibly an exaggeration, he has even plunged opponents into alternate dimensions filled with "Lovecraftian horrors."
- Elite Mooks: The Team Flare grunts might as well be Agents from The Matrix.
- Expressive Hair: Team Flare agents possess self-adjusting hair. Fashion is everything, after all.
- Finishing Each Other's Sentences: The hive-minded Team Flare agents do this a lot.
- Gargle Blaster: In the form of a bag of sour candy called Wacky Uncle Citrus' Lime Poppers. It allegedly has a flavor so intense that several children across Kalos had required hospitalization, and one child had physically imploded from the intense puckering effect.
- Giant Mecha: Team Rocket is briefly seen using one of these to chase Ash. Its description sounds a lot like a Big Daddy from BioShock.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: Implied to happen to those who are tossed into Joas' eldritch dimension.
- Greasy Spoon: The truck stop in the first story and the diner in the second are implied to be this.
- Hand Cannon: Raozya's stun gun, the Domination.
- Harmless Villain: The Team Rocket grunts in the first story.
- Hive Mind: The Team Flare agents finish one another's sentences and coordinate frighteningly well.
- Hood Hopping: The Team Flare agents do this while pursuing Raozya in the second story.
- Hurricane of Puns: Raozya's capture of a Furfrou in the second story leads to terrible hair puns.
- I Just Want to Be Special: Raozya's entire motivation for becoming a wealthy Pokémon Trainer. He considers his life to be oppressively dull. The world seems to agree, but responds by turning him into a figurative bug-zapper for lunatics.
- Insane Troll Logic: Team Rocket is even more ridiculous than they are in the anime.
- Jerkass: Joas makes no apologies for it, either.
- Killer Rabbit: Most Pokémon are this, but Joas takes the cake.
- Kill It with Fire: The flame-based attacks of Raozya's Fennekin, Napalm.
- Last-Name Basis: Most people call the main character by his family name, Raozya.
- Made of Explodium: Pretty much every vehicle in the chase scene in the second story.
- Noodle Incident: We don't know exactly what Ash and Serena did to Team Rocket in the first story, but it was enough to make James declare that he was going to barbecue Ash's Pikachu. The only evidence we see is a large number of burn marks on their outfits and ribbons of toilet paper.
- Not Enough to Bury: The Team Rocket mook in the first story learns firsthand what a sufficiently-powered blast from a Domination gun can do to a human body.
- Nutritional Nightmare: The "bean and grease burritos" from the gas station in the first story.
- Oh, Crap!: The typical response to one of Joas' overpowered and rage-fueled attacks.
- Only Sane Man: Raozya often feels this way.
- Outside Ride: Atop a speeding train and a speeding tractor-trailer!
- Pintsized Powerhouse: Joas is only a foot tall but can glow like a sun from all of his power.
- The Reveal: Early on, we discover that Raozya is actually a Zoroark disguised as a human.
- Shout-Out:
- The SIMBYL Domination stun gun is an obvious reference to the SIBYL Dominator from Psycho-Pass. Despite the former being advertised as a stun gun, it can still make people explode.
- The Team Flare agents are walking embodiments of references to The Matrix. In addition, the Poké Ball storage facility beneath The Jolly Pirate's Supply Crate resembles the cloning farms from the same series. And of course, the mysterious black cat crossing Raozya's path twice represents that something was changed.
- The cutesy talking spider tanks are a reference to Ghost in the Shell.
- The "Zombat" zombies (human corpses being controlled by Golbat) are a reference to the headcrab zombies from the Half-Life franchise.
- "...An ability that has been passed down the Raozya family line for generations."
- Raozya's temporary disguise as a grossly exaggerated human child mascot in the second story resembles one of Zim's ridiculous disguises.
- James says this regarding the first Team Rocket thugs that Raozya encountered: "The Espurr stunned one of them with its incredible power, making her feel as though she was being launched through deep space for eighteen hours even though it had only been a matter of seconds."
- When Raozya is encouraging his Eevee to focus on thoughts of explosions for the sake of teaching it Self-Destruct, one point of focus he mentions is "an entire stack of TNT."
- The description of Team Rocket's mecha from the third story sounds a lot like a Big Daddy from BioShock.
- A few references to The Catcher in the Rye are made in the third story. These are, of course, made by Joas.
- The part where Raozya suggests that Napalm could use his grasp of human language to "impress a cultured lady Braixen in a window" is a reference to Go West Young Meowth (EP 070), the anime episode with Meowth's origin story.
- Chucks explanation of fighting a "babbling kid with a feeble Pikachu and a demonic Bayleef" refers to the anime episode Machoke, Machoke Man! (EP 209).
- The name of Raozya's Kecleon, Tonguey, is a reference to Kung Pow! Enter the Fist.
- It's pretty obvious what Shabby and his talking Pokémon companion Scoogy are a reference to.
- Super-Reflexes: The Team Flare agents.
- Title Drop: In the first story.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Pickles (or anything sour) for Raozya and Joas. For Napalm, anything spicy.
- Train Escape: Raozya hops onto a city monorail to escape the pursuing Team Flare agents in the second story.
- Traintop Battle: The result of Raozya attempting to use a train to escape the superhuman Team Flare agents.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Raozya and Joas are always throwing jabs at each other.
- Voice of the Legion: When sufficiently angry, Joas can pull this off.
- Warrior Poet: Joas gets into this sometimes, being wicked cultured.
- Wham Line: Joas figures out Raozya's identity as a Zoroark with no effort, and does not mince his words.
- Wheel o' Feet: Ash enraged Jessie and James to such an extent that they display this while pursuing him and Serena.
- Wicked Cultured: Despite being a Pokémon and a sadistic powerhouse, Joas is very cultured and well-spoken.
- Wreathed in Flames: When Joas gets angry, he gets angry.
- Your Soul Is Mine!: Implied to be a power of Joas.
