guides
Every Wild Story You Need To Know From The 'Pokémon Game Freak Gigaleak' Explained
If you're just logging onto the internet for the first time since Friday, chances are you might not know why an image like the one below is a meme.
The combination of Typhlosion, Slaking, Octillery, Lapras and Rapidash seems like the beginnings of a normal-ish Pokémon team – albeit unbalanced with two Water and two Fire types – yet for those in the know, it's a very wink wink, nudge nudge reference to the recent, massive leak of Game Freak data currently sweeping the web.
As has been widely memed about, the leaks contained some pretty salacious, unused lore for Pokémon that does include some people/Pokémon interspecies mating. Granted, the stories aren't canon and are a bit more "Greek myth" than AO3 slash fic, but they are certainly wild for a Game Freak employee to have written down.
Here, we'll break down every bizarre Pokémon story uncovered in the Game Freak leak, starting with the headliner …
The Typhlosion Story
Typhlosion has gotten the most buzz in the wake of the leak. This is because the so-called "gigaleak" contains a lengthy fable in which Typhlosion kidnaps an underage girl, makes her forget her family and fathers a half-human/half-Pokémon child with her.
Here's literally a story about Typhlosion kidnapping a girl, gaslighting her, and then making her give birth to a half human half Pokemon childWhat the- pic.twitter.com/yBfjPctq7I
— Gireum means oil (@GireumNewTown) October 13, 2024
As will become a theme with this leak, a literal description of the events in the story makes it sound saucier than the story actually is. The idea behind these stories is that they're ancient myths, involving a time when "the line between humans and Pokémon was blurred." Thus, the interspecies relationship here is depicted with the dry language one might find in the Bible, Greek mythology or a folktale — it's not exactly Fifty Shades of Grey.
The "Typhlosion" story specifically may be inspired by old folktales about Mujina, a mythical Japanese creature resembling a badger that Typhlosion may be based on. In folklore, the Mujina is a shapeshifting "yokai" capable of deceiving humans.
While the writers may have been modeling these unused story ideas after ancient folklore, the fact is the leak contains multiple stories about Pokémon getting it on with people, and that in itself has proven to be an exceptionally memeable subject.
The Octillery Story
Like the Typhlosion story, the Octillery story also features human/Pokémon mating depicted in the dry language typical of mythology. This time, a man discovers the Octopus-like Pokémon on the beach and after several encounters, the Octillery bears him a son. The whole tale takes place over three brief paragraphs.
Frankly, the more interesting part of this tale concerns the fact that the child born of man and Octillery ends up fighting an Ursaring to the death in hand-to-hand combat.
Of note, another version of the Octillery story replaces Octillery with Lapras, which is why the Gen I Water/Ice-type is getting roped into leak discourse as well.
The Slaking Story
The Slaking story also uses interspecies relations as a plot device, though again, it's not as explicit as memers might have you believe.
In this story, a woman and her village torture local Slakoths and Vigoroths, but one day, the woman gets injured and is captured by a group of Slakoths and Vigoroths. A Slaking (Slakoth's final evolution) ultimately has her bear a Slakoth child, and the woman decides to raise it like her own.
The child is then murdered by the villagers, and the woman drowns herself. This ultimately causes the village to live more harmoniously with Pokémon.
Again, there's no explicit discussion of how the Slaking impregnated the woman, but it's obviously implied, which is why it's raised some eyebrows and spawned memes.
The Rapidash Story
A story concerning the horse Pokémon Rapidash also has lumped the Pokémon in with those "tainted" by the leaks, but this one does not involve any implied mating.
Instead, a "man from the west" desires to wed a sentient Rapidash for its mane. The two are married and the Rapidash instructs the man on how to interact with others of her species.
Skyla
Lastly, there's the original draft for the character Skyla, a Flying-type Gym leader in Pokémon Black and White.
There's nothing particularly salacious about the draft for Skyla like the stories we've already covered, but many have found it amusing that Game Freak apparently originally conceived her as a "large chested" Latina woman a la "Jennifer Lopez."
For the full story of all the leaks, check out Know Your Meme's entry on the Game Freak Gigaleak here.