"We thought we'd take the long way around... but of course, we were sucked into a conspiracy to take over the world. Just a typical week, really."
Wolf, summarizing this RP
We Are All Pokemon Trainers is a PokémonPlay By Post Game created by gamerex27 where all of the participants are Pokemon Trainers. The plot starts off with a Talking Heads bit about all the people randomly showing up in an airport headed to Sinnoh. Then Missingno shows up, turns Canalave City into a mountain of eggs, and Mewtwo shows up to tell the group that they need the help of Legendary Pokemon to defeat the Anomaly. Things just continue to get more insane from there.In an epicFanverse which has so far included a pair of Mary Sues, five Pokemon researchers, a former-NPC, a Mystery Man by the name of Pentigan, an ex-Pokemon Ranger, a Dark-Type Gym Leader in training, more ex-champions than you can shake a stick at, basically the whole of the known Pokeverse (and some of the unknown portions), virtually every Legendary Pokemon in existence, and alternate universes, arcs are common and epicness ensues. Jump right in! After posting in the discussion thread, of course. We could use any new trainers!Has a Recap Page, a Discussion Thread, a chatroom, a drinking game, an image macro, a wiki, and a Useful Notes Document.Please note: When an arc is getting towards its climax, it is best to stay on the sidelines until things quiet down for a bit. There will always be a chance for you to jump in, so please be patient and don't be shy!
Tropes featured in We Are All Pokemon Trainers include:
Absurd Altitude: During the Unown meeting, the group gets teleported into space, being saved from dying due to the Unown's power. They end up seeing the planet in its entirety.
Achievements in Ignorance: For a long time, Daisy's Zoroark, Blacky, was able to use the abilties of the Pokémon he transformed into, even though said transformation is really just an illusion. Blacky seems to have caught on to this as his Illusion ability now works the way it's supposed to work.
Aerith and Bob: Both normal and plain unusual names are common.
All Love Is Unrequited: Nudi the Gastrodon falls in love with Bonnie the Weavile, who doesn't reciprocate.
Almost Kiss: At one point while trying to figure out her feelings for Wolf, DS almost kisses Wolf while he is asleep.
All There in the Manual: Plot points are often discussed in the chat room, Discussion Thread, and Spoiler Text. This includes many cases of Word Of God.
There is also a Useful Notes Document listing information about the characters and the greater WAAPT universe.
Every being hypnotized into "silence", rendering him practically unable to do anything as it would make noise until the mind control wears off.
Palkia's dialogue after being restored from her petrification makes it clear that she was conscious the whole time. She doesn't seem too bothered by it, though, apart from having found being a statue to be really boring.
And Then What?: This trope is more or less what led Jane, Tagg, and Anom to become researchers. All three just didn't feel like doing nothing but battling for the rest of their lives.
Baleful Polymorph: The Pokemon Trainers all end up turning into Pokemon when they go to the PMD universe.
During the OI, Fool (while possessed by Majora's mask) turns three Pokémon poachers into shiny Pokémon.
Vyvyan the Magma grunt starts unknowingly transforming into a Rayquaza due to having to keep Depthcharge and Buggle (clones of Kyogre and Groudon) under control. He is later kidnapped by Team Ozone, who speed up the process of his transformation.
Big Damn Heroes: Jane and her horde of Legendaries in the third arc.
Wolf and his Swoobat in the eleventh.
Tagg and a bunch of the other trainers teleporting down to Kanto to help Tracer and his Pokemon fight off a massive murder of Murkrow and their Honchkrow bosses.
Unite and Reshiram when they go first help with an evacuation of Goldenrod City, then to stop an army at Rt. 32.
DS, the Lake Trio and Palkia during the final battle of the AU arc.
Big "WHAT?!": In the 6th arc, thanks to Cresselia revealing that she is Darkrai's daughter.
Bland Name Product: Twitter Is Chatter, Kingdom Hearts is Empire Soul, Etc. Sometimes overlaps with Hold Your Hippogriffs. A more complete listing is available at the Useful Notes Document.
Brick Joke: When DS first meets Chase the Pidove, he mentions that his wing was injured by a Purrloin. DS eventually catches said Purrloin.
DS has Brain Bleach in her backpack. This is referenced and used many times.
Chase meets the flock of Pidove that left him behind in Nuvema town after joining the group.
Briar Rose learns how to bring objects from the Dream World back with her to the real world, and intends to use this information to bring back some berries she had planted in the Dream World. Next time DS sends Briar Rose out of her ball, she has the berries with her.
Brief Accent Imitation: Jane donned a Southern Accent near the beginning. It went away after a while, though it still slips through on occasion.
Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": Zig-zagged. Regular animals don't exist, and sometimes an animal is mentioned and the trainers won't know what that is. Other times, they refer to certain Pokémon as the animal they are based off of.
Carnivore Confusion: Yes, every Pokemon in the setting is perfectly sapient, and yes, the predatory ones will kill for their food.
Conservation of Ninjutsu: Our heroes regularly end up blasting or beating their way past veritable hordes of Pokemon, but can be given a fair amount of trouble when fighting one on one.
Continuity Lockout: It's really hard to jump in during an arc because of the heavy continuity. This hasn't stopped some people from jumping in anyway and then realizing there's too much stuff going on that they don't know about to actually keep playing. This hasn't stopped a few dedicated players from joining the group.
Convection Schmonvection: Inverted and Subverted at the same time; it is very cold in Snowpoint Temple, and everyone reacts to it.
Played straight when Tagg and Gamer go through the gauntlet of a Pokemon-themed version of Super Mario Bros., due to Palkia having a hangover. Both Tagg and Musashi the Samurott lampshade it.
Cool and Unusual Punishment: The judgments handed out by the Cubone tribe during Tangent, Tagg, Tracer, and their Pokemon's "Trial by Bonemerang".
Curb-Stomp Battle: Tons, mostly delivered by the heroes. Some examples include:
Deader than Dead: What happens to Napoleon in the AU after the souls of the Midori Room mons maul his soul, destroying it completely.
Death Is Cheap: At the end of the first Arc, Gamer's Serperior is killed by David, and comes back to life as a Duskull. Also, Daisy's Charizard is killed by a madman behind the mandess in Canalave City. It then re-appears the next day as a Gastly. Arguably, this trope just occurs with all the thread's Sues and Stus.
Death World: Quest Island, post-Distortion Sinnoh in the AU, and both the AU and OT Giant Chasm.
Demonic Possession: 'Missingno' did this in the 4th Arc. Turns out it was just a Gastly, though. In the 7th Arc, the real Missingno pulls this on Palkia.
It also happened a lot during the Unova arc. The victims included Steven Stone, Iris, Clay, Alder, and Jane.
Die, Chair! Die!: in the fifth arc, Palkia makes a comeback in order to punch the living daylights out of a bunch of pillars.
Disney Death: Happens to Cynthia near the end of the PMD arc, and to Jane, Wolf and Pentigan during the battle against 'M and Team Plasma at the Pokémon League.
DS is seemingly killed by Primal Dialga in a flashback, but unbeknownst to everyone, Dialga was able to resist Cyrus' orders and instead sent DS to the dimension in which the legendaries had been imprisoned.
Distribution of Ninjutsu: While as a whole the group is made up of powerful trainers, some are indeed just leagues ahead of others.
The Dreaded: A number of the Trainers, including Luke, Tracer, and Tagg, gain this status during the AU arc after curb stomping their way past hordes of Scolemis grunts.
Eldritch Location: The dimension where the heroes took on Missingno for the first and last times.
Glitch City.
Elseworld: Many, but the two most often seen are the AU created from Cyrus' time tampering, and the Another!Verse (Based on The World Ends With You's Another Day mode), a Lighter and Softer version of WAAPT.
Enemy Within: The boss of each trainer's mindscape tends to be their inner dark side.
Establishing Character Moment: All three of the Scolemis generals have these moments to show exactly what kinds of mons they are, in particular Lelouch's case.
Yanmega'sfate and Tagg's at the time newly evolved Hydreigon viciously mauling a Pokemon Pincher.
The entire PEFE flashback where Tagg, Tracer, and Silent had to defend themselves from a bunch of Swablu and Altaria poachers in Hoenn and end up setting their Pokemon on them.
AU!Fool horribly mauling a trainer and his Pokemon by ordering her Pokemon to tear him to shreds.
Napoleon's forces killing off Mezzo's mons during the assault on Black City.
Scolipede's Seismitoad's death by Stunfisk school electrocution.
Maekrite willingly submits to a (relatively public) torture session when Silent gets hurt in the AU.
Fantasy Gun Control: Averted. While rarely seen, firearms do exist in this universe.
Fire-Forged Friends: Cinder and Lake in the AU go this way, as they realize they share having gone through many of the events that marked their lives with their Trainer, they just happen to see it differently. Somewhat lampshaded when they remember their challengings of Whitney.
The group as a whole would also count as this as their friendship deepened through their mutual experiences fighting evil.
Five-Man Band: In the beginning it worked like this, but after the group got a lot more members it became closer to The Squad.
A sweeter form of it though with the Breather Arc foreshadowings during the AU.
Freaky Friday Flip: Has happened three times so far, first with Jane and Palkia, the second time with DS and Artemis and the third with Daisy and Pink. A weird variation of this also seemed to happen between Jane and Entei.
Happens yet again with Anom and Wolf, due to a Manaphy. Unlike the other examples, it's played as a more serious major plot point rather than a brief joke, and lasted for pretty much the whole Oblivia arc.
Fun with Acronyms: In the 7th Arc, Generic Announcer Guy is shortened to GAG. And in the 11th, Mysterious Old Man is shortened to MOM. And in the newest arc, "The Minigame Idiot" becomes "TMI".
PEFeDOS: PEFE Division of Observation and Sanitization.
Gender Bender: This happened far more often than it needed to inside Twist Mountain. Wolf and Pentigan still suffered from this after leaving the mountain for a few days before eventually being returned to normal.
Pentigan's amulet has this function. At one point during the OI arc, he ended up accidentally losing it and leaving himself, Anom and Fool stuck as the opposite genders.
Gossip Evolution: Happens when the wild Pokémon around the Orange Islands talk about Algira after she becomes a wanted mon for eating some of the bug Pokémon on the islands. Algira goes from just another predator to a monstrous demon hellbent on devouring every Bug Pokemon on the islands.
Happens again when Latias begins searching for Pentigan's lost Gender Bender amulet so he, Anom and Fool can be returned to normal. This eventually leads to the wild Pokémon searching for a non-existant Soul Dew because they think Latias will reward them with a lifetime's supply of Oran Berries if they can help her find it.
Gyru, a mechanical Pokémon with a robotic superiority complex, is turned thus becoming an organic, inferior being (to add salt to the wound, it has to eat to be cured).
Subverted when Ghetsis orders Kyurem to freeze everyone to death.
Also subverted when Jane gets frozen. She gets melted out, but she ends up with a cold.
Have You Seen My God?: Arceus resigns from his position after the 'M ordeal. OLD MAN and Weedle Prime are put in charge.
In the alternate timeline, the Nidoran colony not registering sighting of their god Ho-Oh for a long time is one of the reasons behind Inka convincing Silent to militarize the colony.
Head Pet: Sunny the Umbreon makes a nice hat. And he can block mind-reading too!
Turns into a Running Gag with Silent's mons as most of them have traded the position or openly fought over it.
Heroic BSOD: Several characters go through this during the Unova arc.
Hero Insurance: Averted, the trainers end up getting banned from a number of Hoennese hotels due to their destructive antics, or to be more exact, their Pokemon's antics.
Heroic Sacrifice: During the final battle against 'M, Anom (who had his DNA become unstable after the events at Twist mountain) tricks 'M into absorbing him, which destroys 'M's anti-legendary shield and allows the legendary Pokémon to join the battle and finish of 'M once and for all. Anom ended up Deader than Dead, until the legendary Pokémon figured out how to bring him back after a week.
Hero with Bad Publicity: The legendaries accidentally destroying the Sky Fortress didn't sit well with its wild Pokemon population.
The main group gets this so badly at one point that Pokepan hotels start denying them service, starting with Hoenn.
Identical Stranger: Wolf and N look almost exactly alike. When they briefly met in Almia, Wolf didn't notice the resemblence at first. He was a bit creeped out by it once it was pointed out.
Improbable Weapon User: Jane tries using her Gallade as a melee weapon at one point. Also, during a flashback to DS' journey through Sinnoh, she uses a hair dryer to knock a member of Team Galactic unconscious.
Innocuously Important Episode: The events of Twist Mountain are mostly just a series of mind screws, but it does set up a few plot points. Including one that ends up being the key to taking down 'M's anti-legendary shield.
In-Series Nickname: The group of trainers eventually ends up being called "The J-Team" by fans that they've amassed due to Jane seeming like the leader to outsiders, even if it lacks a true leader.
Interspecies Romance: Luke and Reshiram. It doesn't work at first, but they change their minds quickly and end up together anyway.
Later countered with Jane and Zekrom.
Until they break up once the two Tao Dragons recognize their feelings for one another.
Algira, Silent's Masquerain, having a crush on Tagg, much to his chagrin.
And when she gets over him, she falls for Helios, Tagg's Volcarona, next. Well, they share egg groups...
Implied for Clover and Glaze (Kim's Lopunny and Minun).
Sierra and Vyvyan, after Vyvyan's transformation into a Rayquaza. At least he does get to keep one of the Pokémon-to-human armbands so he can turn back and forth between his Rayquaza and human forms as he wishes.
Journey to the Center of the Mind : The basis of the entire mindscape miniarc, which involved a good portion of the group exploring eachother's mental worlds after Crewe is revealed to be a Sneasel transfigured into a human by a Mew.
At the end of the Unova arc, Anom is entrusted with a Manaphy egg by Cynthia, and has to make sure it safely makes it back to Oblivia. Anom is strictly told not to tell anyone. However, this trope doesn't come into play until the Oblivia arc when Anom ends up being Heart Swapped with Wolf, and the Pokémon Pinchers capture and escape with the Manaphy, leaving Anom and Wolf stuck in each other's bodies
They initially try to keep it a secret and pretend to be each other, but things get complicated fast. Eventually, the tension within the group gets so bad, the secret gets shattered.
Kill 'Em All: Dialga getting mad and destroying an entire Team Rocket base to a man.
Helios vs the Praetorian Guard.
Lampshade Hanging: Happens once in a while. DS in particular seems to be fond of doing this.
Laser-Guided Amnesia: Both Jane and Luke are afflicted by this in the PMD arc. Luckily, Gamer and Tagg are Genre Savvy enough to know how to fix it.
Leaning on the Fourth Wall: There might as well not even be one with the amount of examples exhibited within the RP.
Luke, You Are My Father: Cresselia is Darkrai's daughter... or at least she claimed to be. Seeing as a book in a library in the Dream World refers to Darkrai as Cresselia's brother, this may not be true.
Meaningful Echo: When Chase as a Pidove rescues Artemis from a Scolipede, he comments: "She may be a jerk, but she's still my team mate!" Later on, after both have evolved and Chase Took a Level in Jerkass, Artemis ends up saving him from a Beartic. Afterwards she comments "You may have been a jerk, but you're still my team mate."
Mega Corp: PEFE (the Fanon Pokédex organization) appears to be like this, Type 2 ("smaller, centralized [...] in something... dangerous"). Whether they are benign or not is to debate, considering its superiors hijack fangirls in a container to use them in experiments with Shinx. Then again those being fangirls, make of that what you will.
Justified by the fact that they ended up taking over the assets of an actual Mega Corp, Pokefutures, Inc.
The Angela region is apparently run by these.
Mental World: The various mindscapes that the trainers visit inside the mindscape miniarc.
Mind Screw: So far, the 5th arc. To elaborate: Jane's and Gamer's pokemon are genderbent, Mewtwo is in a woman's one-piece bathing suit and reading the instruction manual to Pokemon Platinum, Gamer has turned into a Snivy, Jane and Palkia have switched bodies, and the Regis are all wearing hats.
The ending to Goggles' backstory. Did any of it actually happen, or was it just Goggles' daydream? What was up with the Maractus? And who was doing the voiceover at the end?
Don't forget everything that happened in Twist Mountain!
The giant tortilla monster that everyone in Dewford ended up fighting.
Mood Whiplash: There seems to be quite a bit of this.
Multiregional Team: There is at least one person from every main series region to date inside the group, save for Anom, Daisy, and Kim, who were born in Oblivia, Orre, and Almia respectively.
My Skull Runneth Over: Everyone's reaction to having memories from both timelines in the AU arc.
Nature Is Not Nice: Discussed by Tagg and Fool when they share their mutual experiences as a field researcher and someone who was Raised By Animals and is often invoked in both of their thoughts about the subject.
When Helios rescues Algira in the alternate timeline, by knocking the Swellow hunting her and her friends into a lake, they chatter happily while the Swellow is suggested to be being eaten in the background. Helios invokes the trope by name.
Neglectful Precursors: Tens of millenia before the rise of humanity, the dominant species were the Metagross and Alakazam, who created rival civilizations. Following their activation of the Mt. Pyre supervolcano, which the weather trio sacrificed their lives to prevent from fully erupting, the legendaries wiped both civilizations from the face of the earth for their arrogance. Chrome, Lina's Metagross, happens to be a survivor of the original Metagross civilization.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: DS unknowingly made a few comments that inspired the Impossible Thief Emolga to steal Tagg's cynical side. As a result, Nihilist!Tagg was unleashed, and some of the trainers had to fight for their lives while DS went off to find the Emolga and get Tagg's cynical side back so he could be returned to normal.
Tagg ends up starting the Keystone arc by taking Annoski's Keystone to the spot it needs to be for him to revive.
Nightmare Sequence: Fool goes through a rather freaky one during the AU Arc in which she see's herself (The one she identifies as "Sol") using the corpses of Pokemon that she murdered as marionette puppets. A Shout Out to a very similar scene in Felidae
No Dead Body Poops: Averted in the case of a hunted Rapidash, and is actually discussed at an earlier point.
Noodle Incident: Several of these have been brought up, and some of the things that are mentioned to happen off-screen also qualify for this trope.
Not Quite Back To Normal: After returning to their human forms, the trainers still have the ability to understand Pokémon speech.
Not So Harmless Villain: You'd think that two Go-Rock Squad Admins would be easy for our heroes to defeat. You thought wrong. The two of them gave our heroes quite a run for their money before Casval and Pentigan's actions helped turn the tide by temporarily fixing Gordor's pipe organ Power Styler and breaking their control over their hordes of Tyranitar and Metagross, as well as their secondary instruments getting stolen by Librarian's Hitmonchan.
Off Screen Teleportation: The group fly off to Sandgem town to ask Professor Rowan some questions, but after the others have already left, Daisy remembers that she doesn't have a flying Pokemon with her. When the others arrive at the lab, Daisy suddenly shows up with no explaination of how she got there. No one seems to notice.
One-Winged Angel: Pretty much every evil aspect has one or more of these.
Only Known by Their Nickname: About 80% of the cast goes by a nickname of some sort, either due to personal preference or to protect their identities.
Out, Damned Spot!: Fool has a moment like this after she regains her memories and is mentally confronted with the murders of people and Pokemon that she was directly responsible for.
Poor Communication Kills: Caitlin's Sigilyph notices Alder's eyes glowing briefly while he speaks to Caitlin, who is starting to lose control of her psychic powers because of 'M. Realizing that Alder may be controlled by 'M, Sigilyph tries to warn Caitlin's other Pokémon. Unfortunately, said Sigilyph happens to be The Unintelligible.
The Power of Friendship: DS invokes this in order to use the Lustrous Orb to revive the petrified Palkia during the AU arc.
The Power of Love: It is heavily implied that Wolf's feelings for DS is what allowed him to come back to life.
Pronoun Trouble: Virizion. Usually people just go with whatever gendered pronoun gets used first, but so far Virizion is the only one who everyone has pronoun trouble with.
It eventually sparked a debate between Anom and Jane.
Prophecy Of Doom: The cave painting in Oblivia foretells Dialga's betrayal of the Legendaries.
Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Even though DS was seemingly killed in a flashback during the AU arc, it turns out she was merely imprisoned in the dimension where most of the legendary Pokémon had been imprisoned.
Also somewhat played with when DS and the Lake Trio discover that Palkia was basically petrified all along.
Retcon: There have been several of these, not always done on purpose.
Ret Gone: Ribbons the Gothitelle, and several Pokémon that were born because of the trainers vanish when the timeline was altered. However, Helios and Limna managed to avoid this fate thanks to the power of the Adamant Orb.
Eskay getting disconnected, then saying "Dammit iPod" upon return
Oran Berries fix everything.
[Someone] x [Someone else] OTP!
Anom turning into another person.
Silent['s mon] kicks a random pebble.
Every setting an anonymous login on fire, only for it to turn out to be another player, especially Star.
Chatroom Gamer is OP!
Sand In My Eyes: Before she began opening up to the rest of the group, DS had at least two instances of this. There has probably been other instances of this trope from some of the other characters as well.
The Savage South: Quest Island in the greater Sevii Islands chain is a sparsely inhabited, unforgiving place filled with dangerous Pokmeon such as Tyranitar and Skarmory.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Jane abandons the group after having to put up with an endless barrage of R-Rated material thanks to M.
Earlier on, Unite the Rufflet abandons Luke, thinking that he'll never evolve into a Braviary while on his team. Luke doesn't take this well.
Ship Tease: There seems to be a lot of this during the Unova arc between several different characters:
Wolf falls in love with DS, but she doesn't know that and only considers him as a friend at first. Later, Wolf confesses his feelings for DS and kisses her (after turning into a girl). They eventually get together after Wolf changes back.
Rebecca the Serperior so far has two suitors; Goggles the Krookodile and Blacky the Zoroark.
Though her true suitor ends up being Antoine the Scrafty
Apparently, Pentigan was in love with Susan the Lopunny, Jane, and Daisy.
Sleep Cute: Wolf and DS have done this on several occasions. Other characters and several of the Pokémon also do this sometimes.
Anom seems to have a bad habit of doing this by complete accident, and then having a rather awkward awakening. So far this has happened with Fool(Waking up), Star, and DS.
The Smurfette Principle: Gloriously Subverted. At the beginning, the only girl was The Chick, Daisy. Then Janecame along. Later on, Palkia was revealed to be female, and it just snowballed from there. It's gotten to the point where there are slightly more female main characters than male ones (not counting gender-bent ones).
Something Only They Would Say: After Wolf and Anom switch bodies, Jane attempts one, asking Anom-in-Wolf's Body a question Anom would know the answer to, but is disappointed when he doesn't give her the answer she was hoping for.
Before that, Pentigan attempted one of these by asking a question Wolf would know the answer to. When Anom nearly fails to answer the question correctly, Pentigan threatens to send out his Victini to attack him. He is called out on it.
Left the Background Music On: Tagg has a tendency to play music from the games on his iPhokex. It has even become a plot point at times.
Spanner in the Works: A Sandshrew so cute and childish as Dintel can't possibly be a threat to Lelouch's taking over Hoenn, right? RIGHT???
The Squad: The main group becomes this after it reaches eighteen members.
Take Over the World: Both Artemis the Liepard and Anom's Scolipede plan to do this.
In the alternate timeline of the alternate timeline arc, they somehow succeeded.
Taken for Granite: Palkia, during the AU arc, until she was restored to normal with the Lustrous Orb.
Take That: 49 named his annoying Chatot, Pauly Shore
Taking the Bullet: When Napoleon tries to stab Artemis, Mira takes the hit instead and is fatally injured.
Tempting Fate: The trainers tend to do this at times.
That Poor Cat: Has happened a few times, with the cat in question each time being Artemis, DS' Purrloin. This continues to happen even after she evolves into Liepard. Not always played for laughs as it sometimes occurs when Artemis is hit by an attack from another Pokémon during a battle.
Three Amigos: Gamer, Tagg, and Jane, during the earlier arcs.
Time Abyss: Many of the legendaries are immeasurably old, but this isn't touched on very often.
But a solemn morning when her parents read: "Solana Malkewitz, officially dead"
What Happened to the Mouse?: There were a few of these, including the random disappearences and reappearences by Mewtwo, the fate of Pink the Audino's parents and what happened to the Azure Flute, but these have since been answered in later story arcs.
You Can't Go Home Again: It's implied during Portales backstory that the homeworld of the Elgyem species somehow got destroyed, meaning that the Elgyem and Beheeyem that managed to make it to Earth may be the Last Of Their Kind.
Fool, Michelle, and Roderich were permanently banished after the former two ended up killing the Simipour they were supposed to be forcibly mated with due to troop hierarchy.
This also happened to former Scolemis soldiers who defected from Dragonspiral Tower.
You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Anom, Luke, Fool, and Mezzo all have blue hair. Wolf and Gamer have green. Anom mentions having brown hair in the story, though. This is either artistic liscense or simply a Retcon.
Played with in Gamer's example, as he actually dyes his hair that color.