In my latest request for post topics, someone asked what my favorite Pokémon was and why.

I never owned any Pokémon cards. I never watched the TV show. And until I bought my Nintendo 3DS and Pokémon X a few years ago, I had never played a Pokémon video game. But I do have childhood experience with the franchise.

In elementary school (grades 4-6 for me) I remember several friends getting into Pokémon, but I never thought it was cool. And playing with my friends before high school usually meant roleplay. So against my protests that the whole thing was stupid, I was regularly forced to choose which of the 100+ creatures I would portray. So which Pokémon did 10-year-old Dallin deem “cool” enough to associate with?

Alakazam and Mewtwo

Playing the psychic let me be lofty and aloof, caring not for the plebs below. My mind was beyond their puny capacities, and I could control the world with a thought. Who cared about rocks and water when you can bend the mind?

When left to my own choices on what to imagine, I was always fascinated with the untouchably powerful. The person that can face an army alone, or stop lightning with a glance. They can calmly overcome the strongest, loudest outside force. Because inside themselves they know who they are and where their strength lies. They don’t need to prove themselves or show off.

But I also wrote about quietly troubled people. Kids who are abused or have lost parents. Boys who feel like they are broken or evil because of who they are or what has happened to them. Some of these stories end well, some were never finished. I wrote until I satisfied some inner longing, then moved on. I was trying to capture this wish for quiet strength in the face of pain and loneliness.

It was my wish for myself.

I don’t extend myself unless I’m confident. I don’t attack unless I can win. Because I’m not untouchably powerful, and I am quietly troubled.

I’m both quiet and loud. A reserved kid that doesn’t like or understand when people brag and show off. But also a goofball just waiting to run screaming down the hill. Scared of what’s out there waiting to go wrong or hurt me, and wishing to be out in the middle of it all.