Web Video / Twitch Plays Pokémon Crystal

In Gen I, we worshipped the Helix and became gods. In Gen II, we kill the Helix and its gods.

Image courtesy of Dafuq-Izdis-Schitt. Used with permission.

"Helix abandons. Helix forgets. Helix destroys. Helix never forgives. But we the forgotten will fight back. For those fallen. For those yet to fall. For the forgotten 'Mon. Without kings. Without gods. Only Mon◊."

Twitch Plays Pokémon (TPP) is a social experiment in which commands representing buttons on an original Game Boy (up, down, left, right, A, B, and start) are entered into a chat on Twitch, and then translated into a game of Pokémon via an IRC bot. In short, thousands of people are fighting over a controller. Throughout its life, Twitch Plays Pokémon has spawned hilarious characters, memorable moments, and even a few religions.

The first experiment, with Pokémon Red, was an enormous success, at times having over 100,000 people at once watching the stream. The large amount of popular demand led to the creator moving on to the next generation in the series, Pokémon Crystal.

Democracy and Anarchy from the previous run had their activation change. Instead of a percentage of viewers voting for either, Democracy would activate once an hour then deactivate for the rest of the hour if the majority of votes were for anarchy. A system dubbed "Demarchy" (wherein a random command from the current pool would be selected every five seconds) was briefly tested, but it was deemed unpopular and thus canceled. During the final day of the run, Democracy was completely disabled, minus one secret code for reactivating it that the Mob never discovered.

Like TPP Red, TPP Crystal built up a mythos, but in a more Metafiction route. The second run had lost most of its audience after a few days due to viewership had left believing that this subsequent attempt would be an inadequate clone, unable to match the heights of the first. After several failed attempts to emulate the first run, including both trying to create "Bird Jesus II" and releasing their new starter, AJ and the Mob rejected the past and decided to destroy it. The team's quest became one to strike at the heroes who had created these prejudiced expectations of them: Red's team waiting at Mt. Silver. By killing the gods the previous audience worshipped, then all 'mon would be free once more to seek their own destiny.

After 13 days, 2 hours and 4 minutes, the Mob finally succeeded in defeating Red and claiming victory. The stream then took a week long break sampling many other games, before returning to the Pokemon world in Twitch Plays Pokémon Emerald.

Come April 2016, in the lead up PBR 2.0's debut, several older run saves were played. Crystal was the third, following FireRed and Emerald, over 2 years after it's end. It's brief presence was soon followed by Red.

See also here for the archived progress of the game, here for the archived status of the run, or here for live updates, which have been archived here. There is also a recap page, found here.

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Twitch Plays Pokémon Crystal contains examples of:

• Aborted Arc: The Prince Omelette subplot was effectively ended with his release, thus ending the story's Monarchy theme in favor of a more defined Military theme. Note, however, that this was ultimately worked into the storyline itself: The Prince's untimely release results a quest for revenge against the ones supposedly responsible: Red and his team.
  • The GS Ball, much like in the anime.
• Absurdly High-Stakes Game: The final week of TTPC essentially bets the fate of the entire in-game universe on AJ managing to defeat Red.
• Ambiguously Evil: The voices. It's not certain what their true intentions are, only that their method is malevolent.
• And the Adventure Continues: We beat Lance! Hold on, we still have another region to go to.
  • After defeating True Final Boss Red, the Mob still stuck around for a bit, controlling AJ to do random junk.
• Anti-Climax: After hours of struggling, countless attempts at Democracy, and a grinding segment; Morty was finally beaten in 4 hits by spamming Surf.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Instead of a "Release" menu in Pokemon Red that takes the player to the boxed Pokemon, the release option is within each individual Pokemon's menu. While accidentally releasing a Pokemon is still likely, this small change means that Total Party Releases such as the one on Bloody Sunday are far less likely to occur.
  • In addition, Pokemon holding mail cannot be released, though the Mob has yet to capitalize on this.
  • Exp. Share was much easier to obtain and has cured many cases of Can't Catch Up in the team. (Except Ace.)
• Anyone Can Be Released: It has been noticed that a Pokémon holding a mail item cannot be released, but this is yet to be put to use.
  • However, the people have learned to know better, and after the horrible release of 4 members (among them some of the team's main like Prince Omelette and Admiral Adi) the people managed to avoid the PC like a plague and haven't even turned on a PC for 10 days!
• Arc Words: 'No gods or kings, only mon'.
  • A lot of fan works also invoke the lyrics from Kanye West's No Church In The Wild:
  What's a mob to a king?
  What's a king to a god?
  What's a god to a non-believer?
  • (Lazor Gator) I will protect them... because I am their strength.
  • (Brian) No false prophets, I will show what I am worth.
  • (Burrito) They want me to be released, they say I'm evil... I will prove I am different!
• Be Careful What You Wish For: The Mob has made no secret of their hatred for Democracy. On the final week of TPPC, Democracy was disabled at the climax of the game.
• Big Bad: Possibly us, if the Mob turning against Lazergator and their desire to cause drama for its own sake is any indication.
  • Lord Helix becomes a concentrated target for blame following the tragic release of the Admiral and Prince Omelette, some considering Helix to be the very reason the voices possessed AJ in the first place.
    • Lore generally considers Lord Helix to be responsible for the 7-day timer that would end the TPP universe if not stopped, solidifying him as a major antagonist to AJ.
• Big "NO!": If someone in AJ's team faints, or an evolution process is halted, the chat will briefly be overtaken by these.
  • What happened when Prince Omelette and the Admiral got released...
• Bittersweet Ending: Depending on your perspective, AJ's victory could be one. Even though he succeeded in destroying Lord Helix, the voices still exist and will move on to Hoenn.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: After AJ beat Red, the stream switched to Telefang as a sort of intermission. Many of its inexplicable translations became memes in short order.
• Bolt of Divine Retribution: Unleashed by Red's Zapdos upon poor AJ's team, giving our hero a taste of what it means to challenge a God.
• Boring, but Practical: One major point of contention in this game's run is that while Twitch Plays Pokémon Red ended up with a fairly unusual team setup, with the main Pokémon being a Com Mon instead of the starter and leading up to a triumphant Zapdos capture, Crystal was a typical overleveled starter run that many players have already done in their own games.
• Breather Episode: Post-victory, AJ still fumbled around with the Mob for several hours while waiting to pass on the curse to some poor kid in Hoenn.
• Broken Pedestal: In some fanart, Brian had been said to have gotten inspiration from Bird Jesus before his adventure began. Needless to say this pedestal became broken sometime afterwards, as he helped his team kill Bird Jesus and his teammates.
• Call-Back: On the last day, Red's team was modded to have his party from the original Twitch Plays Pokémon Red (albiet without the nicknames, since NPCs can't have nicknamed Pokémon). Of course, the team did think that this was a possibility from the get-go.
  • Just like last time, the stream switched over to the infamous Telefang hack, Pokémon Diamond, some time after the game was completed.
• The Cameo: Apparently Jolyne Kujo is taking up residence at AJDNNW's house, according to some users.
  • Just a single Pidgey or Raticate is enough to make the people in the chat make theories about relatives of Bird Jesus and Dig Rat.
  • AJ had to track down a cutting Farfetch'd in Ilex Forest, which the fandom excitedly declared to be Dux.
• Cargo Cult: Once AJDNNW got the egg from the scientist in the Pokémon Centre the mob took to calling it the reincarnation of Lord Helix and praising it as such. Most are trying to avoid religious overtones, however, to prevent directly copying themes from the Red stream.
  • When it hatched into a Togepi, he was promptly named (out of universe) Prince Omelette.
• Cast Full of Gay: At least half of the main human and Pokemon characters were declared gay or bisexual.
• Central Theme: Camaraderie, struggling with expectations, and a Crisis of Faith.
  • The sorrow for lost friends, and the need to keep on moving.
  • The rage against Gods and challenging one's destiny.
  • The contradictions about following a Manipulative Bastard plan.
• Cerebus Syndrome: AJ's story actually started out fairly light-hearted, fans believing the voices were aiding him in becoming a Pokémon Master. However, as more and more Pokémon were released, fanon became darker, turning to themes of drama and revenge.
• Cosmic Deadline: After the Mob reached Mt. Silver and battled Red a few times, the Admin set a time limit of 7 days to defeat him. If they don't by the end of the week, then Twitch Plays Pokémon Emerald will never start and the world will end.
• Crutch Character: Feraligatr, even more so than Bird Jesus was in Twitch Plays Pokémon Red. At one point all AJDNNW had was an overleveled Totodile and a few completely untrained Route 29 catches. By the time the team reached Red, Feraligatr was... the same level as Battery Jesus, Red's Zapdos.
  • The second most leveled Pokémon in this run, Brian the Pidgeot, also qualifies.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Due to sidetracking and slow progress, by the time AJ reached Falkner, his Totodile had been grinded to level 16. Falkner's strongest Pokémon is a Pidgeotto half that level.
  • On the reverse side, The Mob was sorely unprepared for Morty's Gengar. By the time Democracy mode was activated, all they had left was a Raticate that knew only Normal-type moves.
    • Hilariously inverted, as the subsequent rematch had LazorGator completely sweep through Morty's team without a scratch, instantly defeating all four members with a single hit each.
  • Surprisingly, Karen of the Elite Four stomps all over a number of Elite Four runs with her Gengar's Curse, Vileplume's Petal Dance and Houndoom's Flamethrower wrecking the team.
  • With overwhelming attacks like Thunder and Hyper Beam, Lance utterly curb-stomps a weakened AJ a few times, too.
  • Just like in the original Twitch Plays Pokémon Red, Sabrina of Saffron City utterly annihilated the few Mons that were still alive by the time AJ reached her.
  • Janine of Fuchsia City, with her grossly under-leveled team (even more so for post-Elite Four standards), was defeated without a sweat.
  • AJ's first battle against Red ends with LazorGator and Brian completely flattened by Lv.81 John the Zaptist, himself. Thanks to a few Full Restores, Red defeats AJ without losing a single Pokemon.
• Cynicism Catalyst: Togepi's death causes Feraligatr to snap, abandoning his faith and declaring war against the Old Gods of Gen 1. It also motivates the other party members to choose their own destinies and break out of the shadows of the former heroes.
  • It also revealed Helix's machiavelic plan to destroy AJ's team to avoid the battle against Red in Mt. Silver.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Subverted with Democracy this time. Due to the new system, Democracy actually plays a bigger role than in TPP Red and might be the reason why the run didn't take as long.
• Darker and Edgier: Although the first game had its moments of tragedy, on the whole it was a hopeful and uplifting story of a Chosen One and his party of royalty, messiahs and dragonslayers succeeding against all the odds and proving that by working together it's possible to achieve anything. By contrast, the lore in this playthrough has taken on a much darker tone, with Lazorgator losing his innocence as a direct result of the Mob and becoming the subject of such intense hatred that he swears to tear down the aforementioned heroes for making his life a misery.
  • As a whole, the lore is much deeper and thought-provoking, because now the characters must deal with the fallout from Twitch Plays Pokémon Red; they have a very difficult time trying to establish their own identities. Brian, who was heralded as the second coming of Bird Jesus, lives in the shadow of a living legend and only wants to be "Just Brian." Eevee/RJ-I is just an innocent Pokemon who constantly has to prove that he isn't a false prophet because of the residual bitterness about Flareon. And worst of all, Lazorgator, once adored by the mob, becomes the subject of intense controversy and a war wages to decide his fate; he survives, but many of his comrades are sacrificed. As noted above, he becomes obsessed with getting vengeance. Notably, all of this underscores the fact that the true villain of TPP Crystal isn't the Dome Fossil or even the PC, but rather the mob itself, something that TPP Red barely touched on and usually made a joke out of.
  • Zig-Zagged much later on in the run. In order to combat trolls and negativity, Operation Love◊ was enacted. Eevee evolved into Espeon during that operation, due to having a high enough happiness (and it being daytime when he evolved). Born of love, he quickly came to be seen as a symbol of hope◊ among all the chaos and infighting (he was even eventually taught Attract in anarchy, cementing his good vibe reputation). Fast forward to the Elite Four, and the mob is shipping team members, using bright purple heart emoticons to flag messages and coordinate during democracy, and occasionally asking to go pick up Love Bug (OXXOZZ) from the daycare. All while the whole 'Bitter Warriors Swearing Revenge Against The Gods' thing is still going on.
  • Through hard times, defeating Kanto Gym Leaders and after like 10 days without releasing someone or even barely touch the PC, Twitch Plays Pokémon Crystal finally has found its mood as a cross between a dramatic but fulfilling story.
  • Took an even darker turn when the 7-day timer was added. If Red wasn't defeated, the whole world ends along with the stream.
    • Swung back again when the Mob won within 24 hours of learning of the timer, by using their team effectively and careful use of Heroic Sacrifices, cementing AJ's team's status as True Companions. Earn Your Happy Ending indeed.
• Designated Girl Fight: In the final run of the fight with Red, KT took down Air Jordan by herself with Outrage. Both were the only female mons on their respective teams.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The hard-earned defeat of Red's deified team.
  • Other examples include the wild Suicune, Lance's Aerodactyl, and Brock's team of three fossils.
• Difficulty Spike: invoked As of 12 days, 14 hours, and 44 minutes, Democracy Mode has been disabled. In addition, Red must now be defeated within 7 days, or the Emerald run will be canceled. However, there are hints that a secret Cheat Code can be used to activate Democracy again.
  • The Spike was easily trampled over, as Red was defeated thirteen hours after the ultimatum.
• Doomsday Clock: The Mob has seven days to defeat Red. If Red isn't beaten in time, he wins and Emerald will never happen.
• Driven to Suicide: After accidentally flying back to the Indigo Plateau, the mob chose to just have AJ black out from the Elite Four and be teleported back to Vermillion City's Pokemon Center. Instead they just ended up at the start of the Indigo Plateau again.
• Duel to the Death: The only thing that Red and AJ know for certain about their encounter is that one of them will not make it out alive.
  • The battle against Brock in the Pewter's City Gym acquired overly-dramatic vibes, with a team consisting of Kabutops (Dome) AND Omastar.
• Early Game Hell: You know you're off to a rough start when you're getting your ass kicked repeatedly by wild Sentret.
• End of an Era: What Red's defeat signifies, as the Gods of old have been slain. Also, unlike Crystal, Emerald is a new story rather than a direct sequel.
• Epic Fail: Once again this one has its own page.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Despite what the Mob learned from their experiences with Twitch Plays Pokémon Red, the majority still haven't realized that using the PC at any time other than when passing the Godzilla Threshold is a very bad idea.
  • After more than 10 days without releases, one can assume they finally learned it!
• The Extremist Was Right:
  • The attempts to release Feraligatr in an attempt to recapture the magic of the original is what sparked the primary themes of the second playthrough, that of revenge, the casting down of the old gods, and of forging one's own path instead of living in the shadow of one's more successful precursors.
  • The Mob wanted to invoke drama by killing Lazor Gator. Instead they killed Togepi, and sure enough the story took a turn for the darker.
• Eye Beams: In Gen 2 this is Leer and Scary Face's animation, earning Feraligatr the nicknames 'Lazor Gator' and 'King Leer.'
• The Fellowship Has Ended: How many times has the PC broke the Fellowship? Twice now and counting...
  • First time the Mob deposited 5/6 of their Pokémon to get an Egg. In a subsequent attempt to retrieve the party, The Admiral was released and Wooper Goldberg was left behind.
  • The Mob decided they needed to rework their party after Lazor Gator became too much of a Crutch Character. The fact they couldn't deposit Lazor Gator, as he was their last non-fainted Pokemon, caused frantic button mashing and led to two more Pokemon being released and their whole party sans Brian being stored in the PC. Finally they caved in and used Democracy to assemble their new party.
  • The mob had a brief run in with this during their Elite Four fights. Where Brian, KT, and Lazor Gator were all lost into the PC. At the top of the next hour they used Democracy to fix the team, though.
  • It was interpreted as this in the Kanto Gym Leaders' saga, because of a under-leveled Raticate named Ace being in the team instead of longer-standing members like Dr. Hoot or Shuck Norris.
  • The Mob wanted to do a classic version of this in their time after beating Red. Release all the Pokemon except their original starter, Feraligatr.
• Fighting from the Inside: The hourly switch to Democracy mode is sometimes interpreted as AJ temporarily taking back control.
• Filler: The period after AJ defeated Red was mostly the mob goofing around, having AJ do random stuff while waiting to move on to Emerald.
• Foreshadowing: In Twitch Plays Pokémon Red, the Bird Keepers near Fuchsia City were speculated to be false worshipers of Bird Jesus, believing the Pidgeottos and Pidgeots they owned were the real deal. Cut to this playthrough, where the Mob worships Brian as the Second Coming of Bird Jesus.
  • The reveal that this game was ran on a hack after getting a GS Ball and finding the Johto starters in the wild arose speculation about a final battle against Red in Mt Silver with the team hacked to be the same as in the original Twitch Plays Pokémon Red. It was true!
  • Likewise, the Onix Metal Gear/Solid Snake foreshadows to the FOXHOUND-esque Pokemon of the Elite Four found in Twitch Plays Pokémon Emerald.
• Game Mod: Instead of a Vanilla Pokémon Crystal ROM, the streamer loaded a Romhack that enables all 251 Pokemon to obtained in singleplayer. Changes that have showed up in the stream include the GS Ball being handed to AJ in the Goldenrod Pokemon Center, wild Cyndaquils showing up in Burnt Tower, and (most significantly) Onix evolving into Steelix by level, rather than needing to be traded while holding a Metal Coat.
  • The hack also, as speculated by many, replaces Red's team with that of the original stream's team.
• Götterdämmerung: With the defeat of Red, it appears the gods of old are in decline. Old Amber, Dome, and Helix have been slain, and Red's party has been defeated. Great powers are still very much present, but the mighty gods have fallen and Pokemon are free to choose their own destinies. And soon the voices will find their next host to shape the future.
• Good Versus Good/Evil Versus Evil: Both are possible interpretations of the conflict between AJ and Red.
  • Cool Versus Awesome: Though there's no debating this aspect.
• Gray-and-Grey Morality: We've seen all of Red and his team's journey, the hardships they faced, and the bonds that grew between them. Now that the same is happening with AJ and his team, it's become hard to decide who is in the right. Ultimately, it's up to the viewer.
  • With all the non-believing taught brought by Lazor Gator and the rest of the team, people even started to question all of those Helix lore.
• Great Offscreen War: Apparently Lt. Surge was involved in one prior to this game and the last one.
• Hearing Voices: The most common depiction of AJDNNW, second to him being a robot.
• Hell Is That Noise: While on Route 9, the stream entered a brief period of downtime. During that downtime, a sped-up, distorted version of the Route 3 music played in the background. The entire chat was thrown into mass panic.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: The Mob actually got to input at the player's naming screen.
• History Repeats:
  • Half of the mob grew tired of Lazorgator stealing all the experience and making the game too easy, so they attempted to release him. It seems they forgot about what lead to Abby and Jay Leno's deaths.
  • The finding of the Day Care involved as well complex plots to deposit and withdraw team members that worked not so well...
  • The battle against the Sudowoodo blocking the path to Ecruteak, the mob fainted it. Guess what happened when the mob battled the Red Gyarados...
  • Receiving an Eevee as a gift triggered massive hate and apathy towards the little Pokémon now nicknamed Burrito. Averted, in that Burrito finally evolved into Espeon and proved to be different a source of hope in lore.
  • Going through the Ecruteak Gym surely reminded the chat of the grueling mission in Rocket's Game Corner or Safari Zone.
  • Ice Path was so damn grueling that people managed to be stuck for 16 hours in there. Guess how much time they were stuck in the original TPP Red when they were on the ledges of the route to Rock Tunnel and Power Plant...
  • Likewise, going through the route south of Blackthorn finished when it was evident that all the Selfdestructing Gravelers and Geodudes would make the run impossible. Cue to when they got to Victory Road...
  • The last battle against rival Silver in Victory Road before challenging the Elite Four required hours of attempt, just like the last battle against Blue in that route full of ledges at the east of Viridian. The difference was that in Blue's case the challenge was the ledge, and in Silver's case was a cave full of wild Pokémon ready to confuse and explode in our faces.
  • Some underleveled Pokémon like Prince Air, the Lapras, and ATV, the Venomoth, managed to enter the Hall Of Fame in the TPP Red's run. Now, about a certain Raticate named Ace...
  • In TPP Red, ATV the Venomoth slain Lance's Dragonite in an epic battle. Poor Katie the Dragonair and what happened when she stood against Elite Four Koga's own Venomoth...
  • In the original TPP Red, Elite Four member Agatha was the Ghost trainer that almost always stopped the run and defeated the team. In Crystal, the Elite 4 now has a younger woman named Karen. Granted, she battles with Dark and Poison type Pokémon instead of Ghosts, but when you see the results of battling Karen's Gengar and Agatha's Gengars...
  • Many of the places in the Kanto saga, like going through cities and routes explored in the original TPP Red, happen to be talked about like this.
  • Sabrina annihilates AJ's team in the first try, just like in the original days.
  • Hilariously, when the crew wants to go from Celadon to Fuchsia, they find they're unable to pass because they never got the bicycle in Goldenrod, guess Red also knows what it feels like!
  • The hack allows players go into a Safari Zone in the place it stood originally in Gen I's Fuchsia, cue players battling Venomoths and Pinsirs like the old days.
  • Guys we've got to beat Misty! returns during the Kanto arc.`
  • The plot to wake up the Snorlax blocking the path brought almost as much frustration as in the original TPP Red. The difference being that in the original the mob ran away from the battle, while here they defeated it.
  • In TPP Red, the mob couldn't go from Fuchsia to Cinnabar so instead they took the long path all the way through Cerulean, Mt. Moon, Pewter, Viridian, Pallet and finally the sea rout to Cinnabar. The mob had to do an indirect path through Vermilion, Diglett Cave, Viridian and Pallet too, although this time it's the very game plot to do it.
  • Hey let's go for Blue's sister!
  • The Viridian Ledge: the return.
• Honor Before Reason: Upset by bots seeing them through The Ledge, the Mob deliberately sabotages themselves so that they can do it over the "right way."
• Humiliation Conga: The Ecruteak Gym set up a painful one on day 3:
  • First, the gym puzzle teleports the player back to the beginning with a single misstep, making it all but impossible to clear without Democracy.
  • Then, the trainers kept forcing the Mob out of Democracy mode, guaranteeing a misstep as soon as they left the battle
  • Ultimately, when the Mob finally made it through the hellish puzzle, they ended Democracy prematurely and got curb stomped as soon as Morty brought out Gengar, who proceeded to spam Hypnosis and Dream Eater to, figuratively and literally, crush their dream of making it through. Unable to select an effective move, the team got worn through quickly.
• Hypno Trinket: AJDNNW's hat is depicted as one way how he picks up the voices, since he takes their commands as soon as he puts it on. The comics that center around this concept can be heartwarming to nightmareish to absolutely downright black-comedy-style silly.
• Innocently Insensitive: A young boy at the Olivine City Pokémon Center says "Wow! Looks like you and your Pokémon are real close!" just after Prince Omelette was released.
  • (After the joy in defeating the Elite Four, and going to see Elm at his lab) "So the Egg hatched into a Pokémon! Can I see it?"
• Kill the God: One of the more common interpretation of this run; to which AJ and his Ragtag Bunch of Misfits are on a quest to slay the gods that reside atop Mount Silver.
  • The Mob succeeding in killing Suicune rather than catching it only solidifies this trope.
  • The Mob claims to have slain Old Amber in the form of Lance's Aerodactyl. Eventually, Brock's Kabutops (Dome) was slain, along with another Aerodactyl of his own and his Omastar (dubbed a 'False Helix'), both Dome and Helix taken down by Burrito who was then dubbed 'Burrito the Godslayer', allowing him to be proved once and for all not to be like the False Prophet. This leaves the true Lord Helix left in Kanto at Red's side, who finally fell at the hands of Lazorgator.
  • The accidental catching of a wild Goldeen with a Master Ball is also interpreted as not giving a damn about getting legendaries or gods.
• Knight, Knave, and Squire: Lazorgator is the knight, Brian is the Knave, and Burrito is the Squire.^note Lazor fights in a straightforward—if merciless—manner, and for the sake of his trainer and friends. Brian fights to learn more about and create a name for himself, and is not above throwing some sand. Burrito is the newest, weakest, and kindest of the three
  • 2 team members that joined later also happened to manage a name for themselves, Solid Snake the Onix (now a Steelix, it evolved by leveling up since this is a hack) and Katie the Dratini (now a Dragonite).
• Level Grinding: Unintentionally, as The Mob is terrible at running away from encounters. Which is ironic given that in the previous stream, they (again, unintentionally) ran from random encounters so much that simple act of grinding was a huge chore.
  • The Mob actually has a complete aversion to Grinding. As any time they try it, giving up is only a few hours away.
  • Zigzagging trope actually. They managed to grind a little bit in Mt Mortar, Victory Road, the Elite Four and finally at Mt Silver.
• Lighter and Softer: Some interpretations have AJ more resistant to the hivemind and able to act on his own, and one of them suggests that the voices this time originate from Unown (letter-based Pokémon) following AJ around and spelling out messages◊ instead of the debilitating schizophrenia Red suffers.
  • Darker and Edgier: Became this later on in the run, once the themes of deicide and choosing one's own destiny surfaced.
• Metafiction: The stream started to lose 80% of its viewers after the first few days as players started to believe that this run would never match the heights of the previous mythos and would just be an inferior clone. This burden of expectations gradually seeped into Crystal's story itself, with elements such as Brian the Pidgeot trying to prove he is not Bird Jesus II, Burrito the Espeon having to overcome prejudice due to fear of Red's Flareon, and AJ's team making it their goal to kill Red's team, end the Helix religion, and so be free to make their own destinies.
• The Millstone: The players who actually want to deliberately release Feraligatr just to make the game more "dramatic," presumably because they want to repeat the fiasco of ABBBBBBK's release (Since it's the starter). Just to point out, the Pokemon they want to release is about 20 Levels above the enemies (about double their level) and usually OHKOs everything that it hits. Fortunately, their attempts to do so diminished after one try resulted in the loss of Prince Omelette and after the team in general started leveling up more.
• Mind Hive: AJDNNW (AJ). The Mob is as crazy as ever.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Much like its predecessor series, simple tasks that would normally take a single player a few seconds take a lot of time and coordination, and so feel like major accomplishments worthy of celebration. Though you have to ask yourself, how the hell did they manage to answer the Goldenrod Radio quiz correctly and win the Radio Card???
• Mythology Gag:
  • Immediately after arriving on Route 27, AJDNNW faces a Cooltrainer whose team consists of Bulbasaur and its evolutions. The first thing the Mob yells for AJ to do when Bulbasaur shows up? Make it cry.
  • The battle between Katie and Koga's Venomoth sure rose many of an eyebrow...
  • The ROM was hacked so that Red has the final team of Twitch Plays Pokémon Red.
• Never Recycle Your Schemes: Averted, but not in a good way. Some of the Mob insists on replicating circumstances from the first game, like releasing the Starter and letting Pidgeot take over as The Ace... even though Feraligatr, who has a devoted fanbase of his own, is currently twelve levels higher than their Pidgeot. The result is a heavily Broken Base between players who want to invoke the Red playthrough and people who just want to have fun with the current game, who all constantly get into fights at the PC in Feraligatr-related struggles that have ended up releasing other fandom-beloved party members.
• Non-Standard Game Over: A meta example — The Mob has to defeat Red before the countdown expires, or Twitch Plays Pokémon Emerald wlll be canceled.
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: Initially, all evolutions kept getting canceled. Totodile failed to evolve eleven times in a row before evolving in Democracy. This was interpreted as a Peter Pan like refusal to grow up. Since then, however, pokemon have had little trouble evolving under anarchy.
  • Defied with the evolution of Onix into Steelix, where the mob (in democracy mode) coordinated using a rare candy to trigger the evolution after several failed attempts under anarchy. They then banded together to spam A votes on the off chance that a B command would somehow go through and stop the evolution.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Professor Elm did this when he called AJ to ask how Togepi was doing days after it had been released.
  • It came to a head when he asked in◊ person.◊
• Oh, Crap!: The Mob beat the Elite Four and proceeded to start a new game instead of continuing. The chat proceeded to lose its collective mind◊. Then the Streamer intervened, and it got better.
• Poor Communication Kills: The Mob, as usual, suffer some serious setbacks due to the chaotic nature of the game. Lore-wise, this applies to Red and AJ- Red's association with the Helix fossil caused AJ to believe he was an obstacle, while AJ's own association with the Mob served as incentive for Red to fight him. Keep in mind the fact that both are Silent Protagonists, meaning they couldn't talk their situations out if they tried.
• Previous Player-Character Cameo: Red and the team he beat the elite 4 with serve as the final boss.
  • The Farfetch'd from the Ilex Forest HM puzzle has been canonized as The DUX from Twitch Plays Pokémon Red.
• Pun: The invisible-path puzzle in Morty's Gym was dubbed "The Elite Floor" by the stream's Google status document; Pryce's Frictionless Ice puzzle was later dubbed "The Elite Floor 2". Both punning on the Elite Four that wait at the Pokemon League at the end of the game.
  • Most of the nicknames in the first days counted as this.
• Rage Against the Author: After the release of Prince Omlette, a popular concept is that the players are a major antagonistic force.
• Rage Against the Heavens: Since Red will be the endgame boss, with the other stream's Pokémon having been hacked in, AJ will eventually be fighting against characters that were considered Gods.
  • This has become codified through the events of the stream, with people interpreting the events of Ash Wednesday as Prince Omlette and Whooper Goldberg sacrificing themselves to save Lazergator from the heavily divided Mob who were trying to kill him. Lazer has since sworn vengeance against them and their god, Helix, which has become the driving force for AJ to reach Red.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: As with the previous playthrough, every Ascended Meme becomes Ascended Fanon, and much like the first games, the follies of the Mob attempting to act out certain plans (notably the attempt to kill Lazorgator) end up effecting the canon in very notable ways.
• Recurring Element: Despite a lot of the mob intentionally attempting to avert this for fear of running the first stream's memes to the ground, a few have (largely unintentionally) shown up.
  • A Com Mon from the starting area ends up being captured, given a popular nickname, and is eventually released (Admiral to Jay Leno).
  • A Pidgey as a prominent and surprisingly powerful member of the party (Brian to Bird Jesus).
  • The mob ends up accidentally releasing two beloved if currently useless Pokemon in an attempt to release a divisive member of the party (Prince Omelette and Whooper Goldberg while trying to release Lazorgator, to Abby and Jay Leno while trying to release Flareon the False Prophet).
• Reset Button Ending: In this fan art of the ending, Lazor Gator and AJ have killed all of Red's team, minus a Not Quite Dead Lord Helix for some exposition. However, it's seemingly done nothing to avert the end of the world. Instead AJ wakes up on the day he was going to be a Pokemon trainer, now free of the voices and able to make the journey again on his own. Lazor Gator is a Totodile again and he's gotten a second chance to protect the yet-unborn Togepi.
• Sarcasm Mode:
  • "Wow, your Pokégear is impressive! Did your mom get it for you?"
  • "Good. I see you understand how to use Poké Balls." (Professor Oak's Pokedex evaluation)
• "Save the World" Climax: Upon reaching the Very Definitely Final Dungeon, Democracy mode is disabled and a countdown to Pokemon Emerald is started. This was interprited by many as a Doomsday Clock.
• Say My Name: Anytime a member of the team faints, the chat will wail their name as if they've died.
• Screw Destiny: A major plot point at the beginning: Because AJ and his Pokemon were stuck in the shadow of Red and his team, they wanted to merely defeat them to prove they can make their own path. This soon shifted to other things...
• Second Coming: Some consider the caught Pidgey to be the son of Bird Jesus from Twitch Plays Pokémon Red. Others believe that the true Bird Jesus is with Red on Mt. Silver, waiting for AJDNNW to arrive.
  • A majority on the otherhand believe it's just a normal Pidgey that others have mistaken for a messiah, so they named him Brian.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Common speculation was that after defeating Red, the voices in AJ's head would stop just as they did when Red defeated Lance. Come Day 13, Red is defeated... and the mob still controlled AJ after the credits.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: The mob actually managed to successfully use an item in combat, an antidote on a poisoned Oxxy. Oxxy gets KO'd in the very same turn.
• Shout-Out: Brian the Pidgeot who is not the messiah, but a very naughty bird.
• Something We Forgot: As one mob member points out,◊ Shuckie is still in the PC. And Mania still hasn't gotten him back.
• Spin-Off: Burrito is getting a Dating Sim!
• Spinoff Babies: The Mob proclaims the intermission game Petz: Hamsterz Life 2 as one for several characters in the TPP universe.
• Spiritual Antithesis: To Twitch Plays Pokémon Red. While the previous runthrough focused on the god-like power of Red and his team as well as spawned a religion, this runthrough is starting to focus on more secular, military-related themes in a situation where gods are said to be absent.
  • Note that in Red, all this was Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory, while Pokémon Crystal actually features gods who are revered in the game universe.
  • Has now shifted into a quest to destroy all gods.
• Take a Third Option: Originally the stream used the same anarchy vs. democracy system from most of Red, but it later switched to a compromise between the two.
  • Got reverted and then the Streamer chose the first option along with a timer.
• There Is Another: When the Reset took place, it's revealed that Kris also had the potential to be a host for the Mob.
• The Three Faces of Adam: Contrary to the six Pokemon in AJ's Ragtag Bunch of Misfits the growing arc focuses on Lazorgator, Brian, and Burrito who show this trope with
  • The Hunter: Brian
  • The Lord: Lazorgator
  • The Prophet: Burrito
• Timed Mission: At 12 days, 14 hours, and 44 minutes, the Democracy timer was replaced with a countdown timer. If the stream does not defeat Red within 7 days, then it's Game Over and Emerald will not happen. 11 hours and 20 minutes later, they did it.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Mt. Silver paints a formidable final dungeon on the way to Red. It becomes even more formidable after democracy is permanently disabled.
• Villain Protagonist: In their attempt to destroy the gods, AJ, LazorGator, and the team are considered by some to have become this.
• Violence is the Only Option: On both AJ's and Red's sides.
  • Red: AJ controlled by the Mob? Beat the shit out of him.
  • AJ: My Pokemon can't get out of the shadow of Red's Pokemon? Beat the shit out of them.
• The War to End All Wars: AJ's goal is to defeat the Helix Fossil, his hope being that doing so will rid him and the world of the voices for good.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Red recognizes AJ as the Mob's new chosen one and waits for his challenge, using the nature of some of his party members to threaten the apocalypse should he fail, if only because he (probably) recognizes the danger the Mob poses and the fact that AJ winning will just cause some other poor kid to be chosen.
• Wham Episode: The Release of the Prince caused morale to drop.
  • Then the Mob released Wooper and made it worse.
  • The Emerald stream will begin after AJ defeats Red within seven days. Our hero has a week to defeat Kanto's strongest trainer or the Hoenn adventure will never happen.
  • Wham Line:
  Twitchplayspokemon: if we don't beat red by the end of the stream, no emerald.
• Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Any time a Pokémon is released, morale and unity suffers.

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