Final Project: Cyberpunk Yourself

I. Four Autobiographical Lists

Before listing the items, I want to clarify a few things that might be unclear for people who do not know what they are. I am a huge fan of competitive Pokemon, especially the video game competition (VGC, for short). I have been playing in local and regional level competitions, where more than 2,000 people participate as players. The following items contain jargon and specific terms related to Pokemon VGC. The short story in part IV also includes a journey as a Pokemon competitive player in a cyberpunk-like setting.

1) Authority

• Tournament organizers and judges
• The ranking and matchmaking systems
• Sponsors and broadcast staff

2) Technology

• Nintendo Switch
• PC / laptop
• Smartphone

3) Things I do on technology

• Build teams, run calculations, and iterate based on matchups
• Actually battle in competitions using my Nintendo Switch
• Watch tournament VODs and take notes on meta trends
• Register for events, check pairings, and submit team sheets
• Discuss with my fellow players on chatting apps, such as Discord

4) Online cultures

• VGC Discord community
• VGC Twitter and YouTube analysis ecosystem

II. Four Fictional Things

1) Technology: Basement Holo-Cage Fights

Pokemon battle is no longer held on gaming consoles like the clumsy Nintendo Switch. In 2077, trainers battle in cage fights using hologram technology. Steel rails, concrete floors, and the AR rig fill the live arena, as if Pokemon exist in real life. Pokemon have actual weight, heat, and collision. It is so real that people cannot tell that what happens in the cage is not real. However, there is a trap: the organizers record everything that happens inside the cage, such as the player’s emotions (hesitation, panic, confidence), and they sell the data as “performance profiling.” The more a player battles inside the cage, the easier it is for the system to break them down.

2) Authority: The League Judges

The friendly judges in 2025 do not exist anymore. They now spectate the battles from a separated booth above the cage, tracking live biometrics and signals from the players. A warning from the judges means something completely different now. It is stuck to the player like a tag, forever. Too many tags make the player have harder matchups, worse lighting, and worse audio quality. Because of the high authority, players now have to not only win the matches but also strictly obey the judges.

3) Things You Do on technology: Damage Calc run by monopoly

Damage calculations, which are completely free and pervasive on the Internet in 2025, are controlled by a monopoly company named MetaSight. It is the only organization that is officially approved, and its service is completely based on subscriptions. Players who cannot afford the subscriptions go to the black market and find someone in the underground called the “reverse-engineering god.” He rebuilds the calculations from scratch only with recorded battles, and the underground community calls his product “OpenSight.” MetaSight calls it piracy and attempts to find and take him down, but players call it “survival.”

4) Online (Sub)culture: Ladder Gospel (Underground VGC network)

In response to the dictatorial organization, players form an underground community that is hard to track: Ladder Gospel. Players share tactics, matchup notes, and ways to survive as a VGC player. They never post full teams, but only fragments if one earns enough trust. The community is a mutual-aid network for trainers who want to overturn the oppressive sovereignty, and a silent battle between them is slowly but surely rising to the surface.

III. Make a Protagonist

My protagonist is Rin Alvarez, a trainer who used to be a clean player in the past. She followed the rules, respected the judges, and won clean. She thought that following the rules would, of course, treat her fairly. The faith collapsed when her biometric sensor glitched during a match, and the judges labeled the incident as “external assistance.” Rin appealed, but nothing was fixed. She received a permanent tag that follows her everywhere she goes.

After that, her cage matches became harder and harder. RNG favored her opponent in the worst way possible. Random audio cues burst out at critical moments. Sudden lighting hindered her sight to break her concentration. The organization does not have to kick Rin out of the league. All they have to do is make her look unstable on broadcast, and people will think of her as an uninteresting player to watch. The sponsors will eventually not want her, and she will leave the league by herself. Rin realizes the league does not tag criminals, but instead tags inconvenient players, who do not have a marketable story.

Rin’s flaws are that she always has self-doubt and obsession. She always contemplates if her decisions are correct and whether she does not look suspicious. However, she cannot stop digging because of her curiosity and sense of justice. She is not merely playing Pokemon anymore. She records every single detail that happens inside the cage, and she attempts to uncover the dark side of the league by building a private archive of “impossible” patterns.

Her goals are not only removing her tag, but also proving her hypothesis: the league packages tag histories into a hidden marketplace and markets VGC as a predictable entertainment for the high society. Sponsors, betting networks, and broadcast organizers are artificially creating a version of reality where the “right” players win.

IV. Write a short story

00:16:02 - Exhibit A (Replay)
Venue: David L. Lawrence Sublevel Arena - Cage 3
Format: Regulation B, Doubles
Subject: Rin Alvarez (Trainer ID: 5182677)
Opposing Trainer: N/A (masked profile, hidden by sponsor logo)
Result: Loss (2-0)
Notes: Biometric Sensor Anomaly tag applied at 00:20:41

With a deep sigh, Rin plays the clip again. A trainer might access the replay videos when they want to learn from their past mistakes. Rin, however, wasn’t looking for her mistakes. She was trying to prove something. The footage plays perfectly like clockwork. Every time she rewinds the video, the frame stays smooth like butter, as if the system does not want to look human at all. The stabilized process run by the League helps those videos to be produced most perfectly. Thanks to that, the battle looks more real than anyone’s life in this city.

Rin pauses the video at 00:20:39. Two Pokemon, Tyranitar and Garchomp, stand in the cage, tall enough to cast shadows upon the staircases around the cage. Their breath fogs in the cold air, and their growl is not too loud, but intimidating enough to make a kindergarten kid cry. There is a slight hint of the crowd, murmuring filtered through the venue speakers.

Rin’s hand is in the air, making a gesture to command a move to Tyranitar. The AR rig around her arm reads the motion and translates it to a command. In 2077, competitive Pokemon use actual motions rather than clicking buttons. The League calls this a clean, safe world. No clumsy hardware issues. A trainer’s intentions are fully reflected in the commands.

00:20:40 - The lighting changes.
It’s subtle. Just a tiny bit. It flares like a camera flash, and Rin blinks once, expressing distress. The system, of course, catches it. The League loves those “tiny mistakes.”

00:20:41 - Biometric sensor spikes.
The replay pops a banner on the top right of the screen: “Heart rate variance exceeds fair play range.” And there is another banner that pops on top of it right after: “External assistance suspected.” Rin clenches her teeth. Because of the light, what left her hand was not the command that she meant. Tyranitar uses Rock Slide instead of Ice Fang, which would have sealed the game. The opponent takes the advantage immediately. The match collapses for Rin in a devastating manner, and the audience is puzzled by Rin’s bizarre move choice.

Source: SciFi Japan / Toho

Rin releases another deep sigh, opening up her notebook.

• 00:20:40 - The lighting changes.
• 00:20:41 - Biometric sensor spikes.
• 00:20:42 - Input drift (wrong move).
• 00:20:43 - Opponent punishes.

Rin taps her stylus on her desk. She isn’t mad at the audience for thinking she is a bad player. In fact, she needs to hide her emotions as much as possible. Anger is something that one should hide in 2077, because the League thinks that emotion is an instability. It can create another tag.

Scratching her head, Rin opens up MetaSight on her laptop. The interface, with a logo of a Pokeball, greets her like a polite nurse. An overly bright background music is played with a slogan that reads: “Officially verified battle assistance tool. Trusted by the League.” She enters her trainer ID and retrieves the replay video. She goes to the exact moment where she misplayed and feeds the data to the damage calculator. The process is easy, all thanks to using the League’s own data feed.

MetaSight returns a number: “252 Atk Garchomp Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Tyranitar: 116-140 (56 - 67.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO.” Rin rewinds the video. She watches the opposing Garchomp brutally attacking her Tyranitar. It seems like it’s alive, as if it knows what pain feels like.

Tyranitar’s health drops. 81%.

Rin blinks. She checks the input in the calculator. She reads the numbers, the items, the movesets, everything. She double-checks, because self-doubt is better than being wrong. She manually types in the calculations on MetaSight. The output does not change.

With another deep sigh, Rin closes her laptop, logging out of MetaSight. She stares at her TV screen, just watching the frozen frame of the cage. On top of the screen, Rin can see a glimpse of the judge booth, which has tinted glasses and two slight silhouettes. She has never seen their faces, as they stayed in the booth and exited using different hallways.

She thinks to herself, “If official numbers do not match the expected outcomes, either the calculation is invalid or the official model is broken.” Back in the days, if something like this happened, the game would be immediately canceled, and the bug would be fixed. But now in 2077, it sounds like a problem that someone has to challenge the authority, which surely looks impossible for a single person to do.

Rin saves the file under a name that looks harmless: Match Prep Notes, Round 1. Then she stands, puts on her AR rig on her arm, and leaves her apartment.

Before Rin reaches the doorknob, she hears a notification buzz on her phone. She sees a message without a profile on her lock screen, thinking that it’s weird to see a blank gray profile image. The message reads: “Ladder Gospel: We saw Cage 3. The numbers don’t match.”

Rin gasps. She did not share the replay with anyone. She hasn’t even told anyone about it. She did not even say a single word in her room. Another message arrives: “Do NOT reply. Bring your notes and AR gear. Sublevel B, service stairwell. 30 minutes.”

Rin stares at the screen for a minute, and then she turns off her phone and the lights in her apartment. She closes and locks the door, and this time she does not double-check if the door is locked.

The stairwell doors are dull gray, as all restricted areas are like that in the city. As she walks down the stairs, the hum of the city sound becomes clearer: the ventilation fans, water dripping from the pipes, and a distant pulse of the cage projectors. The stairwell is narrow, and it seems like there were no cameras in the area. “The city maybe thinks it’s cheaper to pretend not to see what happens here,” Rin thinks, and she sees a fluorescent light flickering on top of a gray metal door. The light feels different from the “perfect” lighting from the hologram cages. This one feels more old and human.

Photo by Mo Eid on Unsplash

As Rin stares at the flickering light, her phone vibrates again: “Stay there.” She obeys the message, staying where she is. From the other side of the metal door, she hears footsteps. The metal door opens with a creak, and Rin sees two men. They are wearing outfits that fit more with construction workers rather than Pokemon trainers. Their faces are not covered, but they weren’t memorable either. They were not gazing at Rin’s eyes, but at her wrists.

“Sensor?” one of the men says quietly. Rin lifts her arm, revealing the sensor. It looks like a bracelet. One might think it’s just optional jewelry, but it’s not. It’s not optional.

“Show me,” the other man says. Rin opens up her notebook, showing her notes about the match. As the man slowly skims through her notes, Rin tries to hide some of the other stuff that she wrote. Information is not something that can be easily shared in this town, even though it is the truth.

The man tilts his head and asks, “And the calc?” Rin responds, “56 to 67 percent. Guaranteed 2HKO.” The man nods, as if he’s implying that Rin passed one of his checkpoints. They slowly come up to Rin and say, “You’re not the only one. Come.” They open the metal door.

The first thing that surprises Rin is that there is a huge market in this underground area. “How does the League not know about this?” Rin thinks to herself. As Rin and the two men are walking, one of the men says, “People think tags are for discipline, like points on a license. But it’s not. It’s more like a label.”

“Label? Label for what?” Rin asks, even though she knows the answer. The man responds, “For value.”

Their footsteps stop in front of a small office. As Rin enters, she sees a huge screen with difficult mathematical formulas and numbers written all over the place. On one side, she sees multiple screens of replay VODs of HoloCage matches. On the other side, there is information about the players who are playing in the VODs. She finds herself among them.

“What’s this?” Rin asks. The man carefully pulls up a screen from his satchel. “This is what your matches are for.” He launches an app, which looks awfully similar to MetaSight. But it has a different name on the header: “League Performance Profile Marketplace.” Rin stares at the screen for a long time, and she barely says, “That’s not real.” The man gives a sad chuckle, saying, “That’s what the League wants you to say.”

Rin scrolls down the screen and finds categories: “Composure rating, compliance risk, broadcast appeal, tag history summary…? What’s this for?” She also finds a price next to the profile. The man holding the screen responds, “The sponsors buy this. The broadcast buys this. Betting networks buy this. The ‘fair’ game that you’ve been playing all along? It’s all made up. They pick a winner, and they make the winner.”

Rin’s hands tremble. The man goes on, “Your tag wasn’t a mistake in the first place. It was the League’s decision on purpose. External assistance suspected. That’s your story as a player.”

“A cheater,” Rin whispers.

“A stress case. A cautionary example. Someone who can be attacked when the audience wants drama,” the man adds.

Rin’s lips go dry. The man opens up another app, called OpenSight, which also looks exactly the same as MetaSight, and puts in some numbers. She sees Garchomp and Tyranitar. The man turns his screen and shows it to Rin, saying, “Watch.” A line on the bottom of the screen reads, “252 Atk Garchomp Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Tyranitar: 150-169 (72.9 - 82%) -- guaranteed 2HKO.”

“How’s that possible? Those numbers… Those calculations cannot be true. It can’t happen!” Rin shouts.

“But that’s what happened,” the man says. “That’s the real roll under cage conditions.”

“Cage conditions?” Rin repeats.

“Yes. The cage isn’t just a cage. It changes everything. The League takes full control to change the damage output. It’s tuned.”

Rin’s hands are trembling even harder, although she tries to stay calm. She hates that the first thing she feels is fear. Fear is what the League wants her to feel.

“Why are you showing me this?” she asks.

“Because you noticed,” the man with the tablet responds.

Rin thinks of her past days before hologram was introduced. Back then, damage calculators were everywhere and free, with many different features. People were freely and happily meeting online on Discord servers to argue about spreads and movesets.

In 2077, knowledge is never shared. It’s always licensed. Companies package it as “assistance,” but they will never sell to someone who’s not worth it.

“Ladder Gospel,” Rin whispers. She vaguely remembers other players talking about an underground community where players with multiple tags secretly sneak into and are never to be found.

The man nods. “We are going to publish a sermon tonight. And we want you to help us. It’s just a dump. Some clips, timestamps, and screenshots. Enough to make people notice.”

Rin flinches. “And then what? The League-”

The man cuts in gently. “We know. Truth doesn’t break systems. It never does. But it can make the system work a little bit harder. We think that’s still a win.”

“What do you need from me?” Rin asks.

Rin is in her apartment room in the dark, staring at her phone. At 8:58 pm, a message from Ladder Gospel arrives: “9pm. Leak the information.” Soon enough, she receives files flooding on her phone screen. One of the files is her match, named “Cage 3 Discrepancy - Exhibit A.” She clicks. For a moment, she feels like she is breathing again. She sees all the marketplace information: the prices, categories, tag histories.

At 9pm, with a click of a button, all information has been sent to the mass public on the League’s platform. Rin sees the comment section flooded with confused reactions. After that, people are asking questions.

What is “broadcast appeal”? Why is “compliance risk” priced? Why is the MetaSight calculation different from the actual damage?

Rin feels something happening in her chest: hope.

About 10 minutes after the post, the main channel on the TV transitions to breaking news. Every venue screen and every panel on the streets change to a “public safety” monitor with bright colors and warm music.

Rin finds two commentators on a desk, smiling as if they are paid to make that face. Behind them, there’s a screen with Rin’s evidence all over it. The host says, “It seems like we have some circulating news that has been causing confusion tonight. We want to clear up some context.”

A MetaSight dashboard opens up to the side, with the title that says: “Understanding Tags: Safety and Fair Play. Performance Profiling: Wellness Initiative.” Rin senses something is going wrong.

They are not taking down the evidence. They are not threatening anyone. They are doing something worse: translating.

In a kind tone, the hosts explain that biometric anomaly can happen naturally, and the League protects players by tagging the players under unregulated influences. They call the marketplace a “partner platform.” They call pricing “resource allocation.”

As Rin shakes her head with tears, the feed shows Rin’s face. It’s not her evidence or her words on the screen. It’s just her face. The host goes on by saying, “Unverified interpretations can harm vulnerable players.” And the screen shows Rin’s replays, showing extreme distress when she was closing her eyes tightly because of heavy lighting. A sympathetic text is displayed below the host, saying, “Stress Response Example. Please Be Kind to Players.”

Rin pulls up her phone in disbelief and tries to upload the files once more on the internet. The loading bar stops at halfway, and the screen displays an error message: “Content contains unverified claims. Please refer to verified broadcast information.”

She switches to other platforms. It still displays the same error message.

The League doesn’t have to delete her proof. They just have to make people believe that Rin’s information is wrong. They just have to make the official announcement credible enough for people to think that it’s for public safety.

At this point, Rin realizes what Ladder Gospel means. The League does not erase evidence. They republish it.

Rin steps out from her room, finding a giant public screen showing the MetaSight logo. A couple of teenagers walk behind her, saying, “See? It’s just safety stuff.” Another voice says, “I knew MetaSight wouldn’t lie. They’re verified.”

Rin opens up her mouth, but can’t say anything. She feels her voice is too small to fit the whole city. Above the street, she sees the slogan of the League: “Realism is Fairness. Fairness is Safety.”

Source: Reddit - r/cyberpunkart

V. Project Report

As a competitive VGC player, the Nintendo Switch is an everyday item, and changing that to an AR gig would make the battle feel more real. The experience would transform from a safe environment into a more surveilled performance. Since cyberpunk usually extracts people’s values by controlling them, AR technology fits the theme perfectly.

Friendly judges are also changed to a stricter authority. However, I did not choose to make them as a dictatorial organization superficially, because that would make the public not obey them. Instead, they would gently control the players by manipulating them. The procedure feels neutral, but eventually the organization takes over in terms of power structure.

Free online damage calculators are everywhere online right now. They are also mostly fanmade, as The Pokemon Company (TPC) does not release an official calculator. However, even damage calculators, which are essential tools for VGC players, are controlled by a monopoly entity, and the service is also paywalled. This creates a class barrier, which is another common trait that appears in cyberpunk literature.

Online communities, such as Discord and Twitter, which are usually open and friendly, are fragmented and hidden in this story. They should be encrypted because of the controlled environment, and trust also becomes a valuable currency in the dystopian setting.

The story contains features of cyberpunk literature as follows: people live in a society with a high level of technology, but the quality of their life is still low. There are several advanced technologies, such as hologram cages that feel real, biometric sensors on human bodies, and predictive systems. However, people still live in damp, underground spaces. There’s also mega corporations that take over the control. “The League,” is mentioned multiple times in the story, and apps like MetaSight is a close ally that flows together to take full control. There are still unknown entities such as “the sponsors,” which can be even stronger than the League. Surveillance is also a cyberpunk trait that has been featured in the plot, where biometric, eye tracking, and sensor tags become valuable data and can be sold. Mediated reality is also another feature, as Rin’s evidence is eventually translated by the stronger authority, and people believe that the League is telling the truth.

Aesthetics is also another trait the story conveys multiple times. Places such as basements, steel rails, concrete, and flickering lights resemble an infrastructure that gives the feeling of a world run by systems, not people. Judge booths are also made with tinted windows because the authority must be invisible and untouchable.

Although Pokemon VGC is still held both in the current timeframe and in the story, they feel completely different because of several changes. Competition in 2025 is a healthy event where people test their skills and have fun with other players. Competition in 2077 has a stronger environmental control where skill is not the only part that matters. Damage calculators in 2025 are made by community knowledge, while those in 2077 are authority and depend on subscription status. Judging in 2025 is a tool for the community to be organized, while those in 2077 are for shaping people’s behavior by setting a daunting atmosphere. Online communities in 2025 are welcomed and friendly, while those in 2077 are becoming more of a survival rather than a hobby.

I deliberately chose the ending to be dystopian, mainly for two reasons. First, dystopian endings are usually more fun to write and read. But more importantly, cyberpunk literature often states that power survives through control of interpretation, not just censorship. While there is slight hope that things might get better at the end of the day, the authority translates the protagonist’s message through propaganda and takes control of the mass public. The audience willingly participates in the message since it looks safe and official.

I also deliberately chose to exclude typical cyberpunk tropes, such as cars, guns, gangs, and heavy body modifications. The reason is that I wanted to express that the setting can be dystopian in a setting where fun games are played without people actually dying. Dystopian culture can be grown in any everyday environment.

I chose three images to insert in the story, and the first one is the cage fight scene. I chose this image inspired by the movie, “Pokemon: Detective Pikachu.” There is a cage fight scene happening in the movie, which resembles a similar setting to my plot, and seeing people cheering for a brutal fight, while Pokemon is a harmless game, sounds interesting. I also chose the stairwell scene to have a photo of a dark stairwell to show the boundary between the perfectly set city by the League and the darker side of the city where Ladder Gospel survives. The last image that I chose is the cyberpunk skyscraper image at the end to show how Rin is a powerless existence compared to a giant city and the authority controlling everyone living there.