Game:

Counter-Strike: Source (2004)

Duration: 9:23

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Your eyeballs are MINE—caught in my Electroweb! Whosawhatsit?
twitter.com/yuugijoou
discord.gg/bKT9pRW

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Posted on April 1, 2023. Original description is as follows:

Ladies and gentlemens! You're trapped in the Iono Zone!

Some say the absurdly oversized overcoat is because rubber insulates against electricity, letting Iono and those sweet Electric types get all the close contact they need... but that's a totally ridiculous idea!

Sorry, this channel is now absorbed into and fully integrated as a full-time Iono subsidiary, here to launch Iono's very own Poké Fans Only page! Please understand and have your Pokédollars and/or LP accounts ready to show your ongoing support.

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I mean, besides writing entirely as though some kind of in-universe crossover promotional stunt, the description doesn't really give you much to go on.

All I can say is that the impetus for this piece (or, like... seven... eight... nine images in one?!), production-wise was the fact that despite how definitely "overdressed" Iono really is, I couldn't help but notice that her poses and mannerisms during the Gym Challenge served to emphasize to varying degrees what she's doing UNDER the overcoat.

Which... uh... yeah, if we take our tinfoil hats off for a second, you kinda have to do that. she's a character. Her movements need to read well to the audience, or else we're just looking at an amorphous blob of a garment that has nearly no business staying anywhere she tries to wear it. Doing anything less would've been a bit of a failure on various portions of the design team's parts, and would've resulted in a most bafflingly underwhelming character... which I'm glad is not the case, seeing as how her whole shtick is supposed to be catching attention.

Anyway, while a vast number of people are quite interested in the bodysuit she seems to be wearing under the thing, especially since we get to see tantalizingly little of what seems to be a rather unnecessarily intricate design... at least what little of it actually exists in the game itself.

But we had to go deeper, didn't we?!

...honestly, what I perceive as extra geometry and "depth" and such is really just the nifty application of UV mapping, but the true purpose of any art is to imply the existence of that which does not actually exist. (Sorry, but I'm starting to suspect that Iono... isn't... actually... ... ... real?!)

At any rate, suffice to say that I'm a fair bit surprised and... "impressed" that the coalescence of factors that create the illusion of Iono as more than a simple one-dimensional concept came together as they did for this game. And I'm not just biased by the goofy puppet show idolatry that I may or may not be directly complicit in. (Gosh, it doesn't always have to come down to that!)

Which is pretty surprising, actually... given how very... little we actually generally get to go on in terms of flavor text and such within these games in general, but also the notable sparseness of meaningful human interactions. Heck, Iono herself might as well not exist entirely outside her prescribed Gym Challenge interactions for most of the game. It's not like you can casually chat up MOST of the game's notable NPCs unless you have some official business with them, after all.

That said, what little gossip there is on the civil engineering marvel that is the streets of Levincia also caught my ear... er... eye... especially to be dropped so casually and haphazardly, no guarantee many players will even notice (who even TALKS to NPCs, much less eavesdrops on their private thought bubbles?!) is that Iono has apparently had this gig for quite some time, to the point that many fans aren't even sure how long it's been or how old she was when she got her start. Good! Let's keep it that way! Don't be rude!)

Suffice to say, she's clearly not a child, despite her signature rapport with the player and her "audience" and the persona she's cultivated for the purposes of trapping people's eyes in the electroweb of her iono zone. She's a professional! ...actually, what does she actually do and wear on her time off? Self-care is all the more important if you've got to deal with the pressures of all those eyes.

I mean, I definitely wouldn't know, personally, but I hear. It must be dreadful and all that.

So yeah, Iono knows EXACTLY what she's doing. Which means, rather... Game Freak knows EXACTLY what they're doing. Which means everyone KNEW this moment was inevitable, right?

Pretty sure I'm not far off the mark in that Iono would revel in a little light trolling of her fans on specific days that revolve around taking pranks just a little TOO far.

Thanks for making it all the way to the end!

Bellibolt is NOT sorry.

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Say what you will about the increasing overall simplicity of many monster designs as the series progresses and picks up more artists to try their hands at crafting fresh fauna... but a little visual substitution goes a long way to trick the eyes of those who focus!

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