>>57939907Lore/headcanon time.
Cipher is without a doubt the most heinous evil team. Despite Shadow Pokémon not being that difficult to handle in gameplay, the story drills it into your head that they've been reduced to mindless killing machines. It's easy to gloss over this and see it as corny given that again, nothing graphic is shown since it's a kids game but if you take a few minutes to truly observe once you get to Cipher Key Lair, you should realize by then that the process of turning them that way wouldn't be out of place in some darker anime aimed at teens. For fuck's sake, there are two npc interactions in there that are eerily reminiscent of how people who wake up every day and commit atrocities as their 9-5 job cope with it. One woman talks about it nonchalantly, having to put on makeup for what she treats as a banal office job and some construction worker talks about how exhausting it is to have to mindrape Pokémon all night as a job. Hell, what purpose do these machines serve and what exactly is the purple substance you see forming a whirlpool outside?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlSG8-MMH-4&list=RDVlSG8-MMH-4&start_radio=1Am I onto something here or you all just going to post the Spongebob rollercoaster meme at me? 