Jank and the Memestalk

Once upon a time, there was an eager youg Dev going on his merry way to the beta store to buy some bugs. You see, that was his hobby, buying them and fixing them up so they could become the features they always wanted to be.

This time, the Dev brought his loyal feature with him to the beta store, her name was 'Stability and proper type effectiveness'. She had always been one of the most important features on the farm. On his way back from the store, a hooded man approached him and asked:

"Oh what an interesting feature you have there. Would you be interested in trading it for this magic bug? If you plant it, it will grow into a mighty tree, and if you climb to the top of that tree, it will take you to a land of all the greatest features you could possibly imagine!"

The eager young Dev pondered the offer. Stability and proper type effectiveness was such a treasured feature, but his mind wandered at the possibility of all the wonderful features this magic bug could bring! And so, he made the trade, before totterring off home to plant the bug.

He was scolded, of course, but insisted they wait for the mighty feature tree. And so they did, and it grew. It grew, not into a feature, but into a mighty Trevenant. That Trevenant got into a conversation with one of the farm's most well respected features, 'Good AI Decisionmaking.' Good AI Decisionmaking told Trevenant, to use Phantom Force on a Bibarel.

And so it did.

And it hit.

It was then that the dev realised his mistake. The strange hooded man had lied. This wasn't a feature tree at all. This, in fact, was a memestalk. A memestalk arriving at the farm with the sole purpose of unleashing it's jank amongst all the other features, and by trading away Stability and proper type effectiveness, the dev had enabled it to do exactly this.

The dev desperately looked over at Good AI Decisionmaking and pleaded with it, asking it how it knew about he memestalk's jank. But Good AI Decisionmaking didn't respond, because features can't talk, only moo. He watched as it told all the other ghost types to not use Phantom Force on Bibarel, because it couldn't hit. And even when the dev forced the other ghost types to do so, it did indeed not hit. But not the memestalk, oh no. It's phantom force hit, and Good AI Decisionmaking continued to tell the memestalk it could hit. It was a conundrum. The developer had never seen this much jank in one place in his life, and given how long he had been farming bugs and features, he had seen a lot of jank.

Without the precious feature he traded away, the dev was at a loss. He went out, located another trevanent and brought it to the farm, he even gave it Phantom Force. And do you know what happened?

It couldn't hit the Bibarel, and Good AI Decisionmaking knew it couldn't. For it was just a Trevenant. It was not the dreaded memestalk.

He thought and thought and thought and thought, and finally had an idea! He had given the new Trevenant Phantom Force specifically, but not tampered with the moves of the memestalk, the memestalk knew it naturally. And so he looked at what other moves the memestalk knew and he wondered to himself.

"...Forest's curse couldn't possibly be that janky, could it? It's not even used it!"

And so he taught the memestalk Flame Wheel, and had it use it against Bibarel.

And, as it turns out, Forest's curse WAS that janky, because it was super effective, despite Forest's Curse never being used, just known, it was still working.

The Dev quickly realised the chaos he had unleashed by trading in Stability and proper type effectiveness as he fled the memestalk to check on his other crops. He first ran to his Gourd(geist)s. And lo and behold, with their powers of Trick or Treat, their Phantom Forces were super effective against the poor bibarels.

He next rushed off to check his Starfruit(mie)s. But, strangely, their powers of Soak seemed to have been spared the infection of the jank.

"But how? The code for Trick or Treat and Forest's Curse is identical to the code for Soak!? Why do you work fine!?" He pleaded. But the Starfruit(mie)s didn't respond.  Because they, too, could only moo.

Dejected about the loss of Stability and proper type effectiveness, and the infection of Jank that was quickly spreading about his farm, an affliction that Good AI decisionmaking seemed to understand more than he did, but refused to relinquish its knowledge, the Dev went back to market, trying to find the hooded man. He did, in short order, and pleaded with him to give back his precious feature.

"What a funny little Dev you are. The true Stability and proper type effectiveness was in your heart all along, didn't you know?" He told him cryptically before vanishing into thin air.

With no new answers he wandered back to his farm and caught the culprit red handed. The memestalk was but a scapegoat, as once he arrived, he caught the fiendish Good AI decisionmaking scheming to introduce jank the the great farm.

And so, bugfixing hammer clutched tightly in his fist he went to work, ready to once and for all banish the jank and restore stability to the farm forever more.

The end.

(Disclaimer: Many bibarel were harmed in the making of this post)