#cheddar the hisuian sneasel

[professor-amaryllis]

[sneasedtomeetyou]

:{ Hello!! I am Echo, The Professor's Personal Porysistant™!! We've been at this for days but I think [Doppelganger] is finally starting to get it!! }: :{ A video file is embedded. [LOCATION UNAVAILABLE], Kanto. 12/24/23 4:45 pm. }:

This video starts with the hushed sounds of our two professors talking amongst one another, though the quiet words seem to be lost on us. Echo doesn’t seem too interested in this, however, and instead turns to look around this new-to-her space that we find ourselves in. This lab, though not too dissimilar to Amy’s in some ways, is much larger. Extensive bookshelves line the largest of the visible walls, and a large picture window lets in the warm evening light as it looks out over the nearby forest- quite the view really. 

As her attention refocuses on Casi and Amy we find them sitting at a table clearly meant for young students, the furniture scaled down to better accommodate them. Amy in particular appears out of place, shifting their legs and attempting to get comfortable in the small seat, favoring that left hip. Casi is able to fit well enough in his seat, a fact that seems to bother him more as he watches the taller professor, before making a bit of a face down at his own desk.. 

As echo comes closer the soft whispers between the two become more distinct, though still difficult to make out on the recording. They hold hands and Casi rests her head on Amy’s shoulder for a few moments.

Casi: Hey, we’ll get through this together, okay? I love you.

Amy: I love you too.

When Professor Holly enters the room, an extremely short older woman with gray hair streaked with the remnants of her natural green, Casi abruptly straightens up, flustered. His hand does not let go of Amy’s, however, dropping a bit in between them almost as if to hide the affection from the newcomer. Instead of tea this time the older professor has brought them a tray full of cookies. They smell amazing,- :{ Echo note: Who programmed me to smell?? Why is this something that I can do?? ‘:3 }:  -but combined with the classroom setting it becomes unclear if she is treating them more like colleagues or students. When Holly speaks her voice is gentle but holds a bit of a teasing humor in it. 

Holly: How are you two lovebirds feeling today?

Casi flushes at the word lovebirds but tries to ignore it. His voice is noticeably a bit higher when he speaks. 

Casi: Much better thank you! I do apologize for my… Outburst yesterday. Traveling can be stressful. 

Holly: Which is exactly why I refuse to do it. Did you manage to find a place to sleep last night that wasn’t your car? 

Casi: Am…Professor Amaryllis made the hotel arrangements, actually. 

Amy: It’s rather easy to do when you only have to book one hotel room. 

The statement itself is rather vague and casual, but the way Casi visibly reacts makes it clear what Amy is referring to. They chuckle under their breath at the dismayed look on Casi’s face, apparently finding a bit of humor themselves in the teasing. Almost as if to change the subject, Casi clears his throat and picks up a cookie.

Casi: Anyway… Umm.. Any results with the DNA test? 

Holly: The tests confirmed the Sneasel is in fact a cloned specimen. 

Casi: That isn’t possible.. If she was then I would’ve known about it. There’d be a record of her! 

Holly: It’s the truth. The evidence of the cloning process is clear in her genetic code. Casi: We don’t even have anyone working in Hoenn right now–

Holly: Are there any other programs that you lent DNA samples to? 

Casi: None that I’m aware of…

Holly: Then it may be best to get to the bottom of this quickly.

Casi starts nervously drumming her fingers against the table. She gets increasingly fidgety throughout the conversation, finishing one cookie and taking another, and then another, she doesn’t seem to notice how many she’s eating in her distracted state. Despite the obvious discomfort with the topic she tries to keep her tone level and respectful whenever possible- A tone of disbelief, nervousness maybe, but not anger. 

Casi: Could you trace the DNA back to anything specific? 

Holly: I wouldn’t have access to any of those records. 

Casi: I suppose I do… Next time I’m in Sinnoh I can look through our records for anything…

Amy: Think you’ll find something? Casi: I sincerely hope that I don’t…

Casi: ...Could you run the tests again? 

Holly: It won’t change anything, but I can rerun the sample if it will put you at ease. Casi: I need to be completely sure. If she truly is a cloned specimen then that’s a serious accusation to level.-

Amy hums and squeezes Casi’s hand- Bringing him a little bit back to the present and out of his head. Casi looks over at them and then down to the now half full plate of cookies and the new one that he’s just picked up. 

Casi: …These cookies are good.

Holly: Thank you! I made them myself.

{: Transcription ends :} {: Now imagine this conversation over and over again and [Doppelganger] eating cookies until he's sick and you have a rough outline of the past week!! ':3 :}

[skippthecredits]

Hey man, that's insane about your sneasel. Congratulations, I guess? Hopefully Cheddars care needs aren't too different from a normal sneasel's.

Also, watch yourself in that desert. I had to do a couple months out there and there is a flygon that will just rock your shit completely out of nowhere. It's possible it's not there anymore. It's also possible that he just hated me specifically. But like, watch out.

-@paldean-ranger-brandy

I don't have her anymore. since they're endangered or whatever Professor Amaryllis took her. also apparently not many places have antidotes for Hisuian sneasel venom apparently so there's the whole "you might kill a guy" thing

whatever I'm sure they're right. I'm not gonna fight them on this. not like I know shit about sneasels anyway

the flygon's the least of my worries rn but I'll keep that in mind ✌️ thanks for the heads up you're a real one

[professor-amaryllis]

Stricken by the need to boop that big baby nose immediately.

Hm. Might have to work up to that one.

[professor-amaryllis]

:{ A Video file is embedded. Goldenrod Ecological Society, Johto. 4/13/24 12:00 pm. This transcription translated from Johtonian to Unovan using Poryphone™ translation technology!! }:

The office is quiet as the video opens, the sounds of breathing and the faint sounds form the busy city outside the window trickling in. The place is, to put it kindly, a mess. Papers are scattered across the floor among the scattered books and clothes and pokemon toys, looking much like a hurricane ran through the small space.

Slinky the arbok takes up most of the space on the couch where we first expect to find Amy, and as Echo pans down we can find the resting place of the professor, entombed by the fuzzy weight of five small sleeping pokemon on the floor.

That may well be the best description, entombed, as the professor looks… bad. Despite being clearly awake they simply stare blankly up at the ceiling, fidgeting with a small dark object in one hand. There are deep bags under their eyes and they look like they haven't slept in weeks, stress and tension clear in his muscles.

The silence is abruptly broken by the strange jingling tune of the videophone on Amy's desk, startling a few of the pokemon pile and pulling a grumbling noise from the professor themself. Grabbing their cane from beside them they clumsily tap the videophone up on the desk, activating the voice-only function.

"What is it, what's wrong?" they almost sigh out exhausedly.

"Oh! um, there's a Casimir Ginkgo here for you? She- sir? Sir you cant just go until I get per- She's already in the elevator professor."

"Fuck-" Even as they continue they sit up, setting a couple of the pokemon on them tumbling backwards, reaching for their clothes. "Thank you, jut let him up it's fine."

As they get to their feet and deactivate the videophone we hear a string of johtonian curses before the feed cuts.

:{ Transcription Ends. }:

[professor-amaryllis]

Things have been... Uneventful today. Maybe that's the best it could be honestly, I really can't complain about that. It's genuinely nice just being able to drive like this, well alright I can't drive, that's all Casi. But still. It's nice seeing the snow. It's nice seeing the mountains in the distance. It's nice listening to music while we talk.

Cheddar's been a bit clingy in the car, I don't think that she really enjoys the movement, or perhaps it is the sound, but she prefers to be up front with me rather than looking out the window. It's sort of nice having a purring Sneasel on your lap really. Like a little living hand warmer :)

[professor-amaryllis]

:{ A photo is embedded. [Location Unavailable], Nimbasa. 12/10/23 10:27pm. }:

Amy and Nix can be seen sitting on a couch in what is assumably Nix's living area, it's a basic space, just a few pieces of furniture but it feels very alive with the people and pokemon filling the space.

She scene is just slightly chaotic, with Cooper the hisuian sneasel jumping up on the back of the couch to bat at Gonzo, a playful looking banette that floats upside down just out of reach. Nix reaches forward to keep his drink away from the clumsy performance while Amy laughs and holds an extremely perturbed Cheddar, another, shiny hisuian sneasel, on their lap, her fur bristling.

:{ Transaction ends. }:

Had quite a nice night last night honestly, and Nix was kind enough to let me stay over so I wouldn't have to worry about getting back to a hotel room. I didn't expect Banette to be quite as cuddly as this one is honestly, she wanted to hang out with me and the sneasel all night, hah. Cooper didn't mind, though Cheddar is standoffish as usual.

[professor-amaryllis]

:{ A photo is embedded. [Location Unavailable], Aspertia. 12/11/23 4:00pm. }:

Casi lays on her side half propped up by a pillow on a couch in what must be her living room. Looking about half alive she's been thoroughly bundled in a blanket and blearily looks at her phone with one hand while the other lays in top of a happily snoozing Arlene, a very large oddly patterned Alolan Meowth that stretches out along side her.

In front of her sits Amy, settled on the floor with their back to the couch, reading through a large, heavy book which title cant really be made out. Casi's hand trails thoughtlessly through the ends of their hair, a motion that neither seems to be paying any real mind to.

Curled up next to Amy lays Cheddar who glares across the room at Cooper and a small group of other hisuian sneasel who seem to be having quite a good time chasing each other around.

:{ Transcription ends. Yeesh, what happened to him?? ':3 }:

Well at least Arlene seems to be enjoying Casi's misfortune, I haven't seen her quite so cuddly in a little bit.

[professor-amaryllis]

Isn't it more odd that Cooper does steal than it is that Cheddar doesn't? They're not even Dark types, right?

Ah- Well I see where your train of thought on this comes from I suppose, at least assuming you don't know the origins of 'modern' hisuian sneasel, which many don't; I mean the project is quite recent all and all.

The short and easiest to explain way to put it is that Modern hisuian sneasel are selectively bred from the non native Kanjoh sneasel that now have taken over much of their niche in Sinnoh. Many of these sneasel still have relatively recent Hisuian sneasel lineage all things considered, and still have many latent traits. So by singling out the ones with the largest percentage, and interbreeding other species here and there, they were able to be pulled artificially out of extinction! It is however why only some modern hisuian sneasel are capable of evolution.

But as these sneasel ARE still descendants of Kanjoh sneasel some of their instinctual behaviors are shared, including propensity for theft. Or at least we assume that that is something that is inherited from the kanjoh sneasel, as there are precious few truly detailed records of hisuian sneasel behavior from first hand sources still around.

It really is a fascinating and if i say so myself incredible work from @sneasedtomeetyou who is the head of the project and the person who you should direct any more detailed questions to.

[professor-amaryllis]

Why is having a revived sneasel all that different? sneasel is a sneasel

Ah, I can see where you're getting confused. The problem does not so much lie in what she is so much as where she came from. Revived pokemon do require permits to have- mind you these permits tend to be easy enough to acquire, and assuming you have the capability to care for the pokemon in question they don't give you much trouble. Honestly sometimes I think the process should be a bit more intensive but that's neither here nor there.

The permits are less about keeping people from having them and more about keeping track of the pokemon themselves- no one wants an ecological crisis because someone decided to rerelease ancient pokemon into ecosystems that have adapted to their absence, as as such these pokemon are recorded so that in the event that something like this happens it is easy to tell how it happened and keep it from happening again.

The problem with Cheddar is there is no record of her. Hisuian sneasel fossils, seeing as recent as they went extinct, are exceedingly rare, and as such any that are revived should have some record of this. The Hisuian sneasel reintroduction program work primarily by breeding the latent traits in the modern sinnohan sneasel, working backwards to what they once were, if you will. While they do on occasion revive sneasel so as to not let the gene pool become too shallow, it is not something that happens as often.

For a revived sneasel to be found in the wild with no id number, no record of her existence, no idea who put her there or why and in a place that she would most certainly never have been native to to begin with... Well it's troubling to say the least.

[professor-amaryllis]

Man I do Not have the correct paperwork for a revived sneasel... I'm going to have to get this dealt with before we leave Kanto. Should be easy enough, just. Not something I was planning on having to do.

This all gets stranger and stranger.

[professor-amaryllis]

:{ A Video file is embedded. [Location Redacted], Kanto. 12/18/23 3:37 pm. }:

This video opens mid argument. The afternoon sun shines glaringly off of the snow covered countryside of what can be assumed to be somewhere in Kanto, though without any true landmarks it is a little hard to tell exactly where. We find ourselves in an old, well worn vehicle of some sort, from the looks of it a station wagon, though its hard to make much more out from the inside.

In the back an interesting array of pokemon lounge around the luggage and supplies the professors have brought. A very large Salazzle and a Charmander compete to squish their faces against a single window- despite there being other windows that are completely free- while a Weavile glares up towards Amy in the passenger seat, seemingly unhappy with their existence. In the far back a large faintly spotted Alolan meowth sleeps on a blanket with a happily dozing hisuian sneasel.

Turning back towards the front Echo begins to pick up more of this argument between the two professors. Amy, who seems to be attempting to wrangle a large paper map while also working around a shiny hisuian sneasel on their lap, is insisting that they have things handled and they're sure that they're on the right track. Casi on the other hand seems to be much, much less sure about this and is insisting that they stop for directions.

Casi: I really don't know why we aren't just using Echo to navigate, or just the gps om my phone. This is way more complicated than it needs to be.

Amy: You and I both know why I turned our location off, and the GPS doesn't track us if it doesn't know where we are.

Casi: Yeah, because lost in the Kantonian countryside is much safer. You got me there.

Amy: Look. It's fine. See here we must be on- um. No wait here, it has to be. Hm. Well-

Casi: You have no idea where we are.

Amy: It's been thirteen years give me a break!

Casi: If you aren't going to ask them I am.

Amy: You don't speak Kantonian?-

Casi has already pulled the car over by the side of the road, however, and frustrated exits the vehicle and approaches the first person that he sees, an older man who seems to be simply enjoying the clear winters day sitting on a bench and scattering seed for the local Pidgey and Spearow. Her tone is friendly and cheerful, and she smiles at the man, but as she speaks in a slightly accented Kantonian the man seems to become immediately confused and concerned.

:{ Echo note: I have run the offending phrase through my poryphone translation technology!! Approximate translation follows!! ["What the fuck is your problem?"] :3c }:

Amy, who had been just sort of watching confused through the car window up and until that point, immediately opens the door and in their haste to intervene falls directly into the snow. They scramble back to their feet and over to the pair, and while their speech is muffled through the car door it's clear that they are profusely apologizing in a heavily accented Kantonian. Luckily the poor bystander seems more confused than angry, and after a few minutes of talking the two professors head back to the vehicle. They sit in silence for a moment, Amy trying to brush the snow off themselves, before Casi speaks up.

Casi: ...So I take it I misspoke?

Amy: Is that what you're calling it? Casi where did you learn that??

Casi: Don't worry about it. I was just saying hello!

Amy: That is not what you said at all! And what do you mean don't worry about it? Casi talking like that to people could get you killed-

Casi: Well it's a good thing I asked someone that I knew could speak the language to be here with me, isn't it?

Amy: I... Hm. Alright. Point taken. But don't ever do that again.

Casi: Yeah, ok I won't... So. Were we going the right way?

Amy: ...... We have to turn around...

Casi laughs just as the video ends.

:{ End Transcription }:

[sneasedtomeetyou]

Hey Casi. I was wondering, have you ever hatched any shiny Sneasels? I'm mostly interested in it as an odds thing.

Surprisingly no! The closest we have is Parfait, who because of the coat variant of their mother has a light pink tint, but he isn't shiny and neither is Soufflé. Cheddar appears to be what they would consider a true shiny pokemon, though I didn't hatch her. She's probably the only shiny Hisuian Sneasel I've ever seen alive.

We don't breed pokemon with the intention of obtaining shinies. Arguably they're less desirable since some shinies can have difficulties surviving in the wild. So if we get one it's rather miraculous in that we've done nothing to alter the odds in favor of that.

[sneasedtomeetyou]

so why's it such a big deal that this Skipp guy has a weird Sneasel?

Hisuian Sneasels, the variant that Skipp encountered and caught, are considered critically endangered. I work with a research organization that is attempting to restore the population and reintroduce them to their native habitats. Which is absolutely not in Hoenn. We do not even have someone raising Sneasels in that particular region. The most we do is cooperate with other institutes on genetic research, which may sometimes involve bringing specimen along to their facilities.

For one of our Sneasels to end up in Hoenn would mean that one was misplaced during one of these trips or that the specimen was stolen. Poachers may find these Pokemon to be extremely valuable, not to mention the fact that Cheddar is a shiny Sneasel. It sets off a lot of alarm bells.

Granted, there's always a chance that this Sneasel does not belong to us, and this seems to my knowledge to be the case with Cheddar. In which case that raises a dozen more questions. Was this Sneasel alone? How did it get there? How did it manage to survive in a climate that was so wildly different than its native habitat for however long it was there?