Turning Urban Legends into Pokemon!

Added: 2026-06-04

[00:00:01]Greetings, Beyond Venue. Come on in. Sit on down. Today, we will be taking a look at the wonderful world of Pokemon with um I I'm I'm so sorry. I'm really distracted. I just got a notification for an email with the subject line urgent. So, I kind of really want to take a look at that. Give me just one second. I am so sorry. Legend says, "If you do not make a video on urban legends and send this video to 10 people within the next 23 hours, your master balls will fail, your shiny chances will decrease, and pomon will evolve to be bipedal. But if you do send this to 10 people, unimaginable luck. Clear skin, free garlic bread at any restaurant, even the ones that don't serve it, and possibly $4 to $20 found in a recent jacket pocket. Do not break the chain.

[00:00:50]The last person who ignored this is now using Internet Explorer willingly and still thinks that we're on generation 7.

[00:00:57]Forward immediately or else.

[00:01:00]So that kind of limits what we're going to be doing today. I guess we're going to be looking at urban legends as Pokémon. Now before we've looked at cryptids, we've looked at ghost stories and the like, but urban legends occupy this very specific space. a space where fiction and non kind of intersect, where the ideas are bizarre and otherworldly, but it almost feels like all the parts that build up to it are real, could tangibly exist in our world. So, without much further ado, I want to respond to that other email about that Nigerian prince who says, "I've inherited $2 million if I just give him my social security number." And let's hop right into the video. Now, where is that email? Hey, we need rockets. It's what we do.

[00:01:58]Spooky.

[00:02:00]Yeah. Today, we're diving into urban legends, ghost stories, cryptids, unexplained sightings, and the kind of tales that somehow survive for decades despite sounding absolutely insane most of the time, and damn near plausible the rest. Cross a cemetery without holding your breath, haunted. Cross under a ladder, cursed. Say Beetlejuice three times, and suddenly you're married to Michael Keaton. That one doesn't sound that bad. But if we're going to talk about modern urban legends, we also have to look backward because a lot of these stories existing long before the internet ever got a hold of them. One of my favorites comes from Arkansas, the Girden Light. Now, this one is fascinating. Back in the early 1930s, railroad foreman William Mlan was allegedly murdered during a dispute with another railroad worker near the tracks outside Girden, Arkansas. Not long after the killing, witnesses began reporting something strange. An eerie floating light hovering near the tracks late at night, usually orange, sometimes blue, but always ducking in and out of the trees as though it was searching for something. According to the story, Mlan wanders the tracks carrying a spectral lantern, searching endlessly for the man who killed him, which is kind of metal.

[00:03:13]And the odd part is these glowing floating orbs show up all over the world. The Marvel lights in Texas, the Minman lights in Australia, the Ala lights in India, or the Naga fireballs in Thailand. Different cultures, different countries, same basic story.

[00:03:29]And almost every culture eventually lands on the same conclusion. Yeah, that's probably a ghost, which naturally meant I had to turn this into a Pokémon. Now, the obvious direction would have gone to go floating spooky lantern, right? It's what I absolutely did because object Pokémon are awesome and I'm tired of pretending that they aren't.

[00:03:58]>> Someone cooked here.

[00:03:59]>> Some Pokémon fans see a living trash bag and act like Game Freak personally attacked their bloodline. Meanwhile, these same people worship Aegis Slash and Chandelure like they weren't literally born in the same haunted homegoods aisle. Pick aside because object Pokemon are fun. Magnemite Peak, Tubbish, my son, Polygeist, Tiny Haunted Tea Criminal, and I love him. So, I started looking at Pokémon like Kley, Chandelure, and Bronzor for inspiration and eventually landed on this ghostly, ghouish little forest lantern Pokémon creature.

[00:04:32]Meet Grant.

[00:04:36]>> Grant, the floating light Pokémon. Many report seeing this Pokémon drifting silently through forests late at night.

[00:04:41]When approached, it vanishes instantly, though witnesses claim its eerie glow can still be seen, lingering in the darkness. I wanted Grand to feel deceptively calm, like the kind of Pokémon you'd follow without realizing you were making a horrible mistake. For the shiny, I also went with a green color because I did base the stance, if you can call an inanimate object stance stance. I based it on the Green Lanterns energy charger thing. I'm sure there's a name for it. The movie was terrible and I'm really looking forward to the new series. But all that being said, the shiny is a reference to Green Lantern and I dig this Pokémon. But while the light became the focus of the legend, the real story centers around William Mlan himself, Old Billy Boy. So naturally, I thought, what if Gran evolved into the ghost carrying the lantern? And suddenly, this design got way creepier. I wanted this evolution to feel bluecollar industrial, like a spirit permanently tied to railroad construction and physical labor. So, I looked toward Pokémon like Golerk and Dusk Noir. Big silhouettes, heavy limbs, ancient haunted worker energy. But I also wanted something skeletal, something exhausted, like a spirit still clocking into work decades after death.

[00:05:56]That same death illness feeling that you get clocking into your regular 9 to5.

[00:06:00]And that's the thing that I love most about these urban legends. They reflect not just these ultra paranormal and crazy fears, but real fears as well. Not dragons or cosmic monsters, just grief, isolation, death, disappearance. There's stories born from uncertainty. The ghost lights specifically are fascinating because they exist in this world's intersection between folklore and documented phenomenon. Even modern paranormal investigators still report them constantly. Shows like Ghost Hunter International and countless independent investigators have documented floating orbs and unexplained lights in places where no visible source exists. Now, to be fair, because I don't want to come across as a crazy conspiracy nut job, camera technology, dust particles, lens flare, atmospheric conditions, and outright fakery account for a lot of paranormal evidence online. But every once in a while, there's footage or eyewitness accounts that become really hard to explain cleanly, especially when dozens of unrelated people across decades all describe the exact same thing. A floating light hovering silently or watching from the trees.

[00:07:13]Even if there is a scientific explanation, the mystery is kind of the fun part because the moment that humanity sees something that we don't understand, we immediately start building stories around it. And that is folklore. That is horror. And that is Pokémon 2. Stick with me here as we talk to Chucheron.

[00:07:36]>> Chucheron, the guiding light Pokémon.

[00:07:38]Its calls echo through the woods sounding like a distant train. Trainers have told stories of leaping from tracks as the glow of a train light in the distant bellow are suddenly barreling down upon them. In many cases, it is merely this Pokemon making its way down the tracks. I love him. I love him. I love him. I can't say it any more than that. It is such a different vibe than I feel like I go for with Pokémon often.

[00:08:00]And the build just feels so natural and so unnatural at the same time. He's spooky in a very human way. It's off-putting enough to feel not like a Pokémon, but just fantastical enough to remind you that it is. But Arkansas isn't the only place absolutely infested with stories about strange little nightmare creatures lurking just outside human understanding because Michigan has its own problem. And this one feels less ghost story and more, how do I put this?

[00:08:31]Tiny goblin man actively ruining your life for fun. Meet the Na Rouge, or translated directly, the red dwarf.

[00:08:39]Sounds adorable. It's not. Because despite the name, most descriptions of the Na Rouge point it less like a fantasy dwarf and more like a tiny red demon creature. Sharp teeth, sunken glowing eyes, wild hair, crooked claws, and a horrible cackling laugh.

[00:08:59]Basically, imagine if someone weaponized your sleep paralysis demon and gave it the personality of a raccoon digging through your trash at 3:00 a.m., also known as just my regular sleep paralysis demon. According to Detroit folklore, seeing the N rouge is considered an omen of catastrophe. And apparently, this little menace has been busy. The legend dates all the way back to the early 1700s when Antoine Demoff Cadillac, yes, that Cadillac, supposedly encountered the creature shortly after founding Detroit. Now, allegedly, Cadillac either insulted it, attacked it, or drove it away, depending on which version of the story you hear. And from that point forward, the Na Rouge supposedly cursed both him and the city of Detroit itself.

[00:09:45]And Detroit's history, unfortunately, gave plenty of connection to that myth.

[00:09:49]Economic collapse, riots, industrial decline, and disasters. At some point, people just collectively looked at the city and went, "Yeah, that's probably a demon." So, naturally, I had to make it into a Pokémon. Now, personally, I love the little gnome aspect of the mythology, even though it isn't always the main focus of the story. So, I leaned hard into it. Big pointy red hat, long hook nose, sharp little grin. I wanted this thing to feel like it just unplugged your refrigerator and is now waiting on the phone from a nearby call box asking is it running? But I also wanted to connect it to the broader cultural idea of gremlins because the Nine Rouge isn't the only creature associated with chaos and machinery. Humans have apparently spent centuries blaming tiny goblin men for technological failure, and that's valid. We listen and we don't judge. You see, during World War II, pilots regularly reported mysterious gremlins sabotaging aircraft. Engines failing, instruments malfunctioning, and mechanical problems appearing out of nowhere. Now, obviously, these failures have very real explanations. Stress, combat damage, mechanical wear, human error. But when your plane is falling apart 20,000 ft in the air, apparently your brain immediately goes, "Tiny evil man, there's a gremlin on the wing."

[00:11:10]Which means humanity has spent over a hundred years collectively agreeing on one thing. Technology is scary. And if it breaks, it was probably not user error, but a goblin. So I pulled all of that together into Rugan.

[00:11:25]>> Rugan, the mayhem Pokémon. Researchers attempting to study this Pokémon report constant equipment failures in its presence. Electronic devices cease functioning moments after contact, leading many laboratories to abandon further experimentation entirely. I wanted this Pokémon to feel scrappy, like a creature held together by pure malicious energy. And I feel like I got the point across. The thorny stretching arms were especially important to me because I wanted it to feel almost unnaturally flexible, like it's constantly reaching into machinery where it absolutely should not be. And using those thorns to just kind of tear up stuff, whether it knows what it's doing or not. I love him. I hope you do, too.

[00:12:04]In fact, he could really use an ability.

[00:12:06]So, if you have an idea for an ability for not just this Pokémon, but the rest from today's video, let me know down in the comments. It's one of my favorite parts about putting out these videos.

[00:12:15]and I look forward to hearing what you come up with. Okay, moving on. I love you. Bye-bye. But of course, I couldn't stop at one form because when your inspiration includes demon folklore, airplane monsters, Twilight Zone, paranoia, and gremlins, you evolve that baby immediately. So, I started asking, what happens when this tiny chaos creature gets bigger, smarter, stronger, and ultimately worse? something more calculating, something that understands machinery instead of simply just breaking it. A creature capable of dismantling an entire city one tiny failure at a time. And that's where things started getting really interesting. The idea became so popular that gremlins basically evolved into an entire cultural archetype, tiny chaotic creatures obsessed with breaking machinery. And once Hollywood got a hold of that idea, oh, it was over. The Twilight Zone gave us the iconic there's something on the wing which genuinely traumatized an entire generation.

[00:13:18]William Shatner staring out the airplane window at this horrific creature tearing apart the engine is still one of the most famous monster reveals in television history. Then the movie Gremlins came along in the 1980s and said, "What if the Chaos Goblins were also marketable?"

[00:13:36]And suddenly these little monsters became pop culture icons, destroying houses, exploding microwaves, and causing electrical fires. Just tiny agents of absolute destruction. Even modern stuff still uses the concept. Ben 10 literally gave us Juryri, this hyperactive little gremlin creature that can either repair advanced machinery instantly or completely ruin your entire day. I based the majority of this design on the Gremlin from Twilight Zone, the original one, not that one or that one.

[00:14:07]But I knew in some of that design, I'd have to bring in that Grim Snarl vibe because I dig this guy and I hope you do as well because you can find him in your attic as well as over on the Kofi. Yeah, I drop these designs right there every time that a video drops. So, go and check them out. That link should be appearing right about now. So, I hope you get the chance to uh steal yourself a gremlin. Is that is that the literal opposite of the lesson they were trying to teach us in the movie Gremlins? Well, in the meantime, here's Rugolith.

[00:14:40]Rugoliath, the mayhem Pokémon. Despite their heavy stature, these Pokémon love to travel, either by boarding the outside of planes or clinging to cargo vessels. Unfortunately, their desire to tinker often gets the better of them, with their impulses leading to tearing apart any technology that they may find themselves near. For this reason, some Pokémon are prohibited from travel outside of Pokeballs.

[00:14:59]>> So many things came into play from here, from trolls to gnomes to gremlins to hags to Tangu to Oni masks and the like.

[00:15:05]And I cannot help but feel like I found a new spirit animal. I feel like I've not only grown closer to the N Rouge, but to William Shatner himself. You know what? Let's strike that and move right along to an idea that's a little less creepy. Now, when it comes to urban legends, there's one story that almost everybody has experienced in some way.

[00:15:23]Like this isn't even a regional thing anymore. This is playground folklore and etiquette. It is sleepover ritual behavior. This is every middle school bathroom right around first break. And that is the story of Bloody Mary. And honestly, the reason this legend has survived for so long is because it presies on one of humanity's oldest fears, the idea that something might be looking back at us from the mirror. Now, the ritual itself changes depending on who you ask. Sometimes you say her name three times, sometimes it's 13, other times you spin in circles, and even in rare instances, candles are involved.

[00:16:03]But the core idea always stays the same.

[00:16:06]You stand in front of a mirror in the dark, say Bloody Mary repeatedly, and wait. So given that it's not necessarily Bloody Mary, Lyona, or Beetlejuice appearing when beckoned, I went with the idea of the mirror itself. I looked at Pokémon like Hone Edge as an example and played with the idea of reflections and ornate hand mirrors. I played with patterning and designs to come up with this faux face and an almost swordlike appearance. After all, the greatest weapon that we as humanity have ever been able to muster is our own minds.

[00:16:39]So, take a look, or maybe don't, at Mirrory.

[00:16:45]>> Mirrory, the reflective Pokemon. Staring into the reflective surface of this Pokémon is said to steal the soul of the viewer. Trainers report losing their sense of ambition after capturing the Pokémon, and some even report giving up on their trainer's quest completely.

[00:16:58]Though, when they are in a good mood, they can reveal a trainer's dreams come true.

[00:17:02]>> I dig it. I love it. The idea of a spooky mirror is hardly something unknown to the fake community. I mean, if you look up mirror fake, Google's just about ready to explode. So, the biggest struggle here was coming up with something original that I still enjoyed.

[00:17:18]It's a weird balance cuz you can come up with an idea that no one else has ever had and then realize there's probably a reason they haven't. But here, I really dig it. It's simple, but it works. Now, obviously, most people don't actually expect something to happen, right?

[00:17:35]Right. That's what makes it interesting psychologically because mirrors already mess with our brains. There's actually a real phenomenon called the strange face illusion where staring into your own reflection in dim lighting for extended periods can cause facial distortions, hallucinations, or the sensation that someone else is staring back at you, which honestly means science accidentally proved that mirrors are naturally terrifying. Good job, humanity. You've made us fear wolves, the cold starvation, and now ourselves.

[00:18:12]And the origin of Bloody Mary gets really messy because over time, the legend became this weird blend of historical figures, folklore, and pure internet horror fuel. Some versions connect her to Queen Mary I 1 of England, also known as Bloody Mary, due to the persecution and execution of Protestants during her reign in the 1500s. Other stories describe her as a murdered woman seeking revenge. she's a witch or a grieving mother or a ghost trapped inside reflective surfaces. And that's the fascinating thing about urban legends. Eventually, the original story doesn't just get lost. It stops mattering. Your imagination starts doing the work for you because suddenly every tiny movement feels wrong. The mirror looks suddenly unfamiliar. The dark feels heavier. and your own reflection starts looking off. That's what makes Bloody Mary one of the greatest urban legends ever created. Not because of the ghost, but because of the anticipation.

[00:19:13]It weaponizes your own brain against you and the horror that lives entirely inside your own imagination. This stuff sticks with people forever. So, for the look of this evolution, I went with that medieval vibe, mimicking both a fulllength mirror and an Iron Maiden. I made the faux mouth much more menacing as though it were less a mirror and more and more a portal to another realm.

[00:19:36]Spooky. So, step right up and take a gander if you dare at Maidu.

[00:19:43]Maidu, the reflective Pokémon. While these Pokémon were once used as standard mirrors in ancient times, they also became wellknown for casting curses on any who looked into them. Kingdoms have fallen and rebels have come to power at the behest of this Pokémon.

[00:19:55]>> I dig it. And honestly, big part of that is because I've been wanting to make an Iron Maiden Pokemon for so long. I mean, I guess I even kind of had a chance to do so when I did my musical artists as trainers. I guess there was a way to fit Iron Maiden into that, too. But I have a lot of people telling me different people to put into that video. So, check that out at the end of this one. And let me know if there's a musical artist that you want incorporated. OTHERWISE, I'M GOING TO DEFAULT to Iron Maiden because I so desperately want to draw that as a Pokémon. But that idea, that fear of simply seeing something that you weren't supposed to see became the foundation for one of the most influential urban legends of the entire internet age.

[00:20:36]Because while Bloody Mary spread through whispers and sleepovers, this next monster spread through forums. And somehow that almost makes it scarier because Slenderman man wasn't born from ancient folklore. He wasn't discovered in some forgotten text. He wasn't tied to some centuries old curse. We watched him get created in real time. Back in 2009, users on the Something Awful forums participated in a Photoshop contest where people edited paranormal entities into otherwise normal photographs. And one image changed the internet forever. A towering, unnaturally thin figure, no face, black suit, impossible limbs, standing motionless behind a group of children.

[00:21:18]And what made Slender Man work so well was just how simple the design was.

[00:21:24]There was no gore. There were no giant teeth or no elaborate monster design.

[00:21:29]Just wrongness, something vaguely human standing where it absolutely should not be. And once the internet got a hold of that image, people began to speculate.

[00:21:41]They immediately started building mythology around it. fake police reports, disappearance stories, video evidence, quote unquote, ARGs, found footage series, Marble Hornets especially took this thing to another level and honestly shaped internet horror for years afterward. Not that one. That one we don't talk about.

[00:21:59]Marble Hornets, it's a great series and I highly suggest it. Suddenly, Slenderman wasn't just a creepy image anymore. He became collaborative folklore. Thousands of people collectively building the same monster together. like if Frankenstein were a group project. And that is fascinating because unlike old folklore that evolved slowly over generations, Slenderman evolved at internet speed. So you see, we didn't lose folklore in the modern age. We just digitized it. Like taking old family videos from VHS to DVD to plugandplay flash drive movies. We industrialized it. We canonized it. We gave it life in a realm outside of our own, making the internet into a modern-day ghostly world. So, for the design, I wanted to attach this Pokémon to that idea of existing just outside of our purview. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we are making an ultra beast. UBS are known for being uncanny and odd with their design elements focused around breaking the established rules of Pokémon design. And that is Slender Man to a tea. Well, more so to an ill-fitting suit. So whatever you do, don't look at UB recorder.

[00:23:12]>> Slendril, the vision Pokemon. It appeared through a portal to another world. It tends to lurk near heavily populated areas, seemingly studying human behavior. While it attempts to mimic this behavior, it cannot change its shape, leading trainers, researchers, children, and citizens fleeing an air.

[00:23:27]>> So, who is your favorite? Who are you adding on to the team? Let me know down in the comments below. And hey, on the way down there, maybe stop by the description. There's all sorts of fantastic little goodies there, like our Discord, where you can become a member and get access to exclusive conversation and other little drops. Or maybe you want to support the channel through our Patreon. There you're going to get Photoshop files, highresolution images, as well as access to these videos early.

[00:23:51]Our YouTube members also get that access early. Plus, with me relaunching Stern Conversations on the second channel, Canon Fodder, that'll be down in the description, too. you'll be able to have conversation and ask questions with some of your favorite creators as we venture into that podcast. So, with all of that said, it sounds like you know where to find me and I'll catch you in the next one. Bye-bye.

[00:24:17]>> Yo, he's the startingator commission terminator. It's beautiful work. I'm choked up like Darth Vader if you hating on my man. You not a smart hater. He'll draw anything from digital circus to arc raiders play time. Bendy and egg machine. Five Nights at Freddy's. He drew the whole team. He's blends of Pokemon with loads of franchise.