Unscripted: Ash Kettchum

Most characters slapped a giant skip button on Sweet Tea, but with Ash? They didn’t—and it was refreshing. I think the voice impression threw people off. They didn’t know it was me, and that anonymity gave me space to connect with cops who usually would never show interest in me to begin with. 

I spent hours wandering through patches of tall grass, random places, no markers—just to see who’d notice. A few stopped. They didn’t say a word. They just watched. Sometimes for minutes. Like they were trying to decide if I was a glitch—some local NPC caught in a lag loop. Every now and then, if someone lingered too long, I’d trigger an emote that made me throw wild punches into the air—just for laughs.

My ID said I was seventy. I was leaning into the old coma theory people used to toss around—Ash lost in some dream state. I wanted to spin it differently, though: what if he knows he’s in a Y7 cartoon? What if the rules are baked into his bones—no words, no actions, no thoughts that break the rating? He’s living inside a broadcast loop, censored in real-time, policed by invisible execs. Every moment moderated, every emotion trimmed to fit airtime. And he doesn't know what may or may not happen if he goes beyond the rating. So he just tells everybody at the barcade that Y7 is watching him. 

I called every doctor Nurse Joy, even if they were a guy. Every cop? Jenny. Uniform’s the only qualifier. No exceptions. The hardest part so far? Realizing Ash didn’t know what a sidewalk was. I got hit by cars a lot. Stealing one would’ve felt wrong, like something Team Rocket would do, lol. So Ash walked everywhere, phone out like a compass, pretending landmarks were Pokémon Go stops. It was helping me learn the city, like I was mapping it out.