#even if they have nothing to do(?) with the pokedex

[cloned-soldier]

Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violence

[thechekhov]

Dungeon Meshi Quick Reacts

Ch.26 (Red Dragon)

THEY'RE. SO. DANG. CUTE.

Damn these kids. I also love the fact that Falin has different hair as a child. Kids never changing their hairstyle as they grow into adults is such a storytelling pet peeve of mine.

Also: Laios at his most rambunctious? You mean now? Currently?

This man saw his son and daughter outside for half a second and already somehow knew they were up to shenanigans.

Oh no, he grabbed the wrong hand! How embarrassing. Hate it when that happens.

Bro, he's like 10, you need to find a better person to yell at.

That was solid. A konk on the head that came straight from the heart. The kind only a sibling can give.

.....th-thank you, pokedex junior...?

I would be thrilled if my kid knew how to ward off the undead! Well... I guess maybe thrilled is the wrong word for it.... There are certainly some complications to consider.

He's so cute. He's such a good brother!

HEY, THAT'S ILLEGAL.

Now that you mention it, healing magic stitching entire wounds closed so quickly would probably generate not only a lot of strain, but also heat, and also an insane amount of... well, if not pain, then at least itching on par with pain. That's SO MUCH REGROWTH.

Gotta give it to Marcille, she ain't bitching about things being weird now. Girl's FOCUSED.

Horrifyingly simple. I love it.

He really is just going to CoolAid man his way in there, huh.

But seriously, they're just walking on it! How are they slicing so cleanly? What about bones? They can just... what... cut between the ribs? What about the peritoneum or whatever? If they cut enough of that, wouldn't the innards start spilling out?

So Falin either wasn't eaten or... was already digested......but why would it be COMPLETELY empty?

It's not rested in THAT long... AND it fried up a bunch of Worgs and didn't eat them, now that I think of it. What's the use of killing prey and not consuming it, for a creature that has such a high caloric need?

Laios, mate, you good? Marcille is having an understandably stronger reaction to losing Falin but you're just... coping I guess?

You know, as someone familiar with ttrpgs this line of reasoning is solid. Resurrection spells need materials from the body to be effective. But to anyone else, this MUST be creepy as hell, right? Or am I overthinking?

................how do you even begin to come to terms with a death if there's nothing too big to come back from?

How is it that it's only NOW that I'm thinking of it?

[v0id-echoes]

another interesting twitter observation I wanna talk about

people may have just uncovered a new / upcoming pokemon in Teal Mask related to the Loyal Three

story spoilers for Teal Mask ahead, also pretty long post warning

so in this image used when Carmine and Kieran’s grandpa is explaining Ogerpon’s real backstory to us, people noticed this cut off shape above Okidogi’s head.

Some people seem convinced that this is Okidogi’s hand / fist, but I personally don’t think it looks like that at all. One person suggested that this is Ogerpon without its mask on, which is hilariously wrong, hilariously stupid and makes zero sense in context.

However, a full image of this “mysterious shape” was apparently found in the games files, with all the other assets used in this sequence.

So naturally, people believe this is a new Pokemon. And while I find it reasonable to an extent to doubt this image’s validity, there is something in game to corroborate this. In the shop in Mossui Town, there’s a plush that looks exactly like this supposed Pokemon, just upside down, which is interestingly coloured the same as the Loyal Three’s toxic chains.

For those who don’t know, although the roles are reversed Ogerpon and the Loyal Three are based on the Japanese story of Momotarō, a boy who befriended a talking dog, monkey and pheasant (the Loyal Three) and worked with them to defeat a band of Oni (Ogerpon). However as you probably know if you’ve finished the Teal Mask story, the Loyal Three don’t really have a leader or Momotarō equivalent as far as we can see. However if we’re to assume this little purple thing is a real Pokemon, it’s safe to assume it’ll fill that role.

There’s even more evidence to back up this suggestion too. For one, the Loyal Three are all classified as “Retainer Pokemon” in the Pokedex. One definition of the word “retainer”- the only one that really makes sense in this sort of context- is essentially a servant or domestic worker. It’s very interesting that they’d choose to classify the Loyal Three as Retainers, rather than something more fitting to what we see of them in the game like “Ruffian Pokemon” or just the animals they’re based on or something, because this implies that they are indeed working under something or someone.

The other bit of evidence is that, like I said, the plushie of this supposed Pokemon is coloured the same as the Loyal Three’s toxic chains. Their Scarlet dex entries talk about how their bodies were changed and enhanced by these chains, implying that they were something different, probably smaller and weaker pokemon, originally. It’s possible that this pokemon was the source of these chains and the one who gave them to the Three, maybe in exchange for them becoming its “Retainers”.

So essentially, this supposed Pokemon is the Loyal Three’s “Momotarō”.

What do you guys think of this? With how much evidence there seems to be, I find it hard to believe nothing will come of this at all, although I am curious exactly how they’d introduce this thing if Kitakami’s story is all wrapped up.

[yanderes-galore]

Ooh I'd love to see something about platonic Mismagius from Pokémon trapping a human darling in an illusion of a perfect life to keep them around, but darling catches on after a while and is still trapped in the dream but now they *know* and Mismagius doesn't understand why darling is unhappy as they keep living their perfect life :o maybe years later darling is still not sure if they are in reality or are dream - and it's ambiguous to the reader? If this is too detailed sorry my brain just. Went wild lol

I'll do a version of this, sure!

Your Very Own Reality

Yandere! Platonic! Mismagius Short

Pairing: Platonic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Overprotective behavior, Illusions, Manipulation, Delusional behavior, Kidnapping, Forced companionship.

"It chants incantations. While they usually torment targets, some chants bring happiness." - Mismagius Pokedex Entry, Pokemon Pearl.

---

The Ghost Type thought they were doing you a favor! They had been watching you for awhile and you never looked happy. They thought this would all make you happy!

While you were unaware a Mismagius has attached themselves to you. As you walk down the streets or live in your home, the ghost watches. Admittedly... your life had been causing stress on you.

A bit too much actually.

Like most Ghost Pokemon, this Mismagius was drawn to your negative energy. The sudden spike of stress they got when they found you is what caused them to do something. Anything could've started it.

A falling out, a break up, failing a test, anything...

This Mismagius who's attached to your life felt pity. These Pokemon normally torment others... but sometimes... sometimes they can make others happy. However...

It seems to be a double edged sword.

Wanting to keep you close and in their sight, the Mismagius cries. One simple haunting cry... one incantation is all it takes. They cast an illusion on you and your life.

They only want to help. Plus, they've gotten quite attached to this human. You won't have to suffer... you won't have to leave them. They can keep you forever.

At first, you believe it. Your life is perfect. Everything you ever want is given to you. You're in your own personal reality.

In reality, you're locked in an abandoned home. You're watched and fed berries by the Ghost Type who has been watching you. It's not the first time ghost types have kidnapped.

The Mismagius seems happy when it sees you roam around, giggling and looking happy. Nothing can disturb your fantasies. Not even other Ghosts... unless they'd like to meet an irritated Mismagius.

However, soon the Pokemon notices you're not happy anymore. Time passes and you start to notice gaps in the illusion. You find out your reality is fake... very similar to the Truman Show.

They don't get it! Why is their human upset? They've given you everything!

Just when you think you can find your way back to reality, Mismagius places another odd hex. Your illusion must never end! You'll be... sad again.

But you're sad now too....

The Mismagius works harder now. They drown out your sceptical observations with more illusions. They keep you hallucinating... they keep you happy.

Even as years go by, where you've lost weight from only eating what the Pokemon gives you, your poor mind confused. Just what is reality? What was your life before this?

Was it even any good?

The Mismagius does their best to keep you oblivious. Nothing can go wrong! By now... you're completely theirs.

Why should you think of what's real or not anymore?

Aren't you happy here... with them... in your very own perfect life?

[waywardstation]

Forgot

Phione Akari AU

Ingo is pushing himself too hard and forgetting important responsibilities. Kana is not happy dealing with this.

I wrote this based off a combo of requests, one requesting an AU-specific situation where Ingo needs to hide Akari somewhere, and a general request for more interactions with Kana. And then I remember at the time I wrote this I had been dealing with a pretty awful sore throat and lost voice, so I cast that upon Ingo just to get some of my irritation with it out. It's cathartic writing about it so I can at least relieve it for other characters, haha.

OR read here on AO3!

AND check out the Phione Akari AU masterpost!

Enjoy!

————

The worn bench creaked quietly as Ingo sat down, leaning forward against the table with a sigh.

It felt good to sit down on an actual seat after another trek of five extensively rough days, devoted entirely to fruitlessly scouring the coastlands for Akari. 

Well, in a sense. Her body was still out there somewhere (he believed at least, from what Akari had managed to share with him through writing in her pokedex), but Akari herself was right here with him. And she always had been, it just took the entirety of this trip to realize that. Now a small, watery pokemon hidden just within the flap of his coat collar, it was easy to keep her out of sight.

Ingo felt some guilt over the fact that he could no longer carry her in her water bucket around Jubilife, or even really have her out in the open at all. She had grown attached to residing in it during trips (and understandably so – phione dried out fast), but it was simply becoming too bothersome with Kana and her friend Miki snooping around. And Fancy – Miki’s staravia – was too interested in Akari for their own good. It always gave her the same stare those hungry coastlands murkrow did.

Thankfully though, he had yet to see any of them yet today. Perhaps it would be a little too hopeful to think they were currently too busy with corps work to come find him tonight. But he didn’t hold out on that – usually a trip into Jubilife guaranteed a forced visit with at least one of them anymore.

Ingo had seen a lot more of the two women lately than he would have liked to, ever since they caught a glimpse of poor Akari. 

The phione’s true identity had been easy for Ingo to keep from the two women when the truth had been obscured even from himself, and he simply knew her as ‘Passenger’ . But now that he knew, Ingo felt it may take a little more strain to keep that narrative going; Akari had made him promise not to reveal her demise to anyone, especially not to Kana or Miki. And while returning back to Jubilife, she had made it abundantly clear she wanted him to just keep them away from her for a while. So for now, as far as anyone else was concerned, she was simply a wild pokemon that had become attached to him, nothing more.

But obscuring the truth would allow some problems to continue. During their last few run-ins, Kana had been heavily implying that if he wasn’t going to bother catching the novel Pokémon, she would catch it herself. She ‘had a job to do so as a survey corps member’ , as she had put it (not like Ingo had ever seen her particularly motivated to assist Professor Laventon with filling out his pokedex, though – he assumed it was simply a front to get her hands on a relatively new, conventionally cute, and conveniently portable pokemon that had caught her eye). 

And even if Kana had been exaggerating her intent, Ingo did not want to risk that hypothetical. Not once had he tried to capture Akari in a pokeball, and he absolutely did not want to test to see if he could. He was fully aware that Akari was freaked out by all the unknown consequences that would accompany such an incident, even more so if someone like Kana would manage to catch her.

So, no bucket in town – nothing to tip off that he had her with him for anyone, but especially not for Kana and Miki. And not a word to anyone that she was alive and well, except for the fact that she was stuck in the body of a phione.

While Ingo had his own reserved thoughts about these tracks going forward, he understood Akari’s desired route. Technically, she had gone directly against Kamado’s orders. And after what had happened in the last few months, after the sky bruised red, Ingo knew Akari’s nervous uncertainty was… still there. And while he felt it would be received much better than she was expecting, and he felt ultimately it would be better to say something now rather than later, a small part of him didn’t blame her hesitance.

So for now, he would honor her wishes, despite the extra effort.

A soft clack against the table pulled Ingo from his thoughts. Beni had set down the order he’d made at the canteen’s front — the usual plate of potato mochi, bowl of rice, and steaming cup of tea. 

“Ah, thank you.” The warden pulled the hot food and drink towards him. A quick scan of his order, and he realized something was missing. “…Oh. By any chance, could I request a cup of water as well?” 

“It’ll be right out.” Was Beni’s only reply. Ingo suspected that the man knew exactly why he was asking for it. He’d seen Ingo order it just for his accompanying companion a few times, and probably knew she was with him. Ingo did not worry about him knowing, though. 

The warden cleared his throat delicately, as if the simple action hurt. “And if you’ve got it, some combee honey with it as well?”

One of Beni’s eyebrows raised.

“Ah, not in the water, just with the order.” Ingo was quick to try and explain himself at that sight. He gestured vaguely to his neck. “For my tea. Sore throat.”

Surely, Ingo thought, Beni had heard him constantly shouting Akari’s name like a broken record outside Jubilife’s gates at some point over the last week and a half. 

“Of course, I’ll send Magby out with it shortly.” He finally answered, turning to slip through the restaurant’s door and re-enter his kitchen.

“I appreciate it.” watching the door to The Wallflower slide shut, the warden was left alone to survey the Jubilife strip. At this time of evening, few people were out and about, browsing shops at their own pace, or standing in small social groups. A flock of what he presumed to be starly were out in the distance, amongst the sunset clouds…

Ingo felt something wriggle under the collar of his coat, impatient to move from off his shoulder. The sensation reminded him of the damp spot that had developed there.

“Stay on schedule, Miss Akari.” Ingo reminded her of what they had discussed earlier on the way back to Jubilife. “Remember, safety checks first.”

Squinting against the fading sunset he was facing, Ingo scanned the Jubilife strip street, looking out towards the Galaxy Hall.

A quick peek at the people shopping and talking. A few folks he recognized, but no Kana. 

A glance over his shoulder at the training grounds. No Miki.

“Alright, it is now safe to exit the cab.” The warden tugged the flap of his coat collar back with a finger. He turned his head to find his hidden companion under the fabric, intending to safely remove her himself. However, he instead felt something damp wriggle down his arm from inside his coat sleeve. The suddenness caught Ingo off guard, but she was out of the fabric bridge and onto the table before he could even do anything.

Akari was certainly impatient to get something. Ingo would have guessed the plate of mochi was her target, but he didn’t find himself too surprised when he saw her heading for his cup of tea instead.

“ Phi! ” Akari grasped at the edge of the cup with her flippers, making sounds in her effort to pull herself up and over.

“Ah, refrain from boarding, I am drinking that.” Ingo gently nudged her away from it, before picking it up to take a sip. “I requested water for you, and it will arrive shortly.”

“ Phi,” She squeaked up at him, a tone in her voice revealing that she seemed to be lamenting something. It was so much harder for Ingo to understand her like this, but with some trial and error oveer the last day, he had gotten by with guessing most times. He knew she was starting to dry out by now, and was eager to find a substitute for her bucket.

And most likely, it was partially his fault that she was so desperate to get rehydrated. But he hadn’t had the heart to interrupt Anthe when she pulled him over to her shop for a half-hour conversation the moment she spotted him wearily shambling through Jubilife’s gates. 

Bless the woman’s insistence on attempting to hearten him with every update to the Galaxy Team’s recovery efforts on Akari over his five-day absence. 

“Nothing turned up in the fieldlands, but they’re still searching through the highlands, and they’re supposed to start combing through the mirelands soon… oh Ingo, they’re trying so hard.”

Anthe ended up apologizing when she became emotional herself, and Ingo could do nothing but extend comfort to her. She had no idea the watery blue pokemon situated within his coat collar was the very teen she was so worried about. And Akari had no choice but to slowly dry out on his shoulder over the course of that well-intentioned, but lengthy conversation.

“The tea is too hot for you. The water will be a more suitable option. We do not need you evaporating… again.” An earlier visit to Firespit Island had taught both Ingo and Akari that a phione’s aquatic body was quite prone to evaporation, especially when presented with the heat that the area exuded.

Ingo coughed, restrained but hoarse. He cleared his throat again gently, just as he had earlier. “And I require it in order to properly service my cab. Our last trip had left me in need of it, as I’m sure you understand.”

Endlessly shouting Akari’s name all throughout the coastlands for days on end, even after his throat had been stripped, and his voice cracked. Minimal water breaks sacrificed to instead continually search for her. Breaking down gracelessly the day before at the sight of Akari’s belongings strewn about Castaway Shore, and the horrific implications that such a scene presented. Then breaking down all over again when he realized that not only was Akari still alive, she had been right by his side the entire time.

Understandably, this all took a toll on him. Ingo had sorely overused and undermanaged his voice these last two weeks while searching for her. And for him, it took a lot to get to that point.

It was the entire reason why upon returning back to Jubilife after almost a week in the wilderness, Ingo’s first stop had been The Wallflower. He was sleep deprived, emotionally shaken, his muscles ached terribly, and both himself and his clothing desperately needed a proper scrubbing. But his throat was absolutely killing him, so tending to that came first. 

Another sip from his hot tea, grimacing as a swallow spurred a sharp stinging sensation to flare down his throat. It hurt now, but it would get better. 

He set down the steaming cup, but kept an eye on it to ensure Akari would keep out of it. As it was, he could see her staring at it longingly.

“Your water will arrive shortly, I assure you. But for now,” Ingo pushed the plate of potato mochi closer to her. “Take some time to properly refuel; we haven’t been keeping on schedule doing so as we should.”

The last five days had simply consisted of grazing on plucked berries whenever he had passed by a populated tree or bush. Stress-induced heartburn at night had already made the process discouraging, but it had been hard to justify sitting down to put together an actual meal when hypotheticals nagged at him.

Hypotheticals about how Akari may have been just out of sight, hidden right over the hill. Probably hurt. Maybe bleeding. Possibly passed out, or even-

At the time, it felt morally reprehensible to do anything else other than put every ounce of energy into looking for Akari, but in retrospect, it had been irresponsible to neglect his cab like that. 

Akari had been even worse, though. With frequent refusals to eat any of the berries he offered her, she sometimes even threw them back at him in apparent irritation. Now that he knew this phione as Akari, he recognized she had been understandably frustrated at him for not realizing who she was. But back when she was simply ‘Passenger’ to him, a clingy and high-strung enigmatic Pokemon, it had been exasperating and confusing behavior.

“Phi.” Phione pointed at the potato mochi, then at him. 

“In a moment, I will. I’d like to take care of this first.” Ingo gestured to his throat, before reaching for his cup of tea again. Without honey, the fleeting relief was much too temporary. “Go on and eat.”

“Phi-phi.” Akari squeaked, seeming to accept his answer for now. Using her flippers, she pulled herself over to the plate, and flopped over against one of the potato mochi patties. Ingo watched as bubbles began to fizz inside her transparent body, similar to water slowly climbing towards its boiling point.

Her body was simply just dissolving the mochi to absorb. Over the course of the two weeks she had been with him, Ingo had seen her gradually shift to eating like this. At first mimicking human eating habits and gumming on food, Akari had eventually succumbed to this method instead, realizing it was easier for this form.

Ingo remembered that Laventon had hypothesized the species used their bodies to filter feed in the ocean as they drifted in the cold depths. Phione didn’t exactly have teeth. Or a skeleton. Or a recognizable muscular system, or even proper skin. He didn’t really know what the frail species’ body did have – as far as he could tell, they were almost entirely made up of water. So he supposed a process like this shouldn’t be surprising.

Soon enough, the patty was gone. Ingo cleared his throat gratuitously after another sip, setting the cup aside for the moment. “Alright Miss Akari, I’ve been thinking about our next trip out to the coastlands.”

“ Phi? ” Akari shot him a puzzled look. 

“Indeed! It’s been on my mind the whole trip back,” Ingo guesstimated Akari’s reaction. “And I’m considering when we next depart, our first stop should be over around Veilstone Cape. If that’s where your belongings were found, perhaps your, well… your original body is still somewhere nearby.” 

“ Phi!” A firm, disagreeable shake of her head. 

“No? Do you think we should look somewhere else?”

“Phi-phi!” Was that a yes, as in “yes, look somewhere else!” ? Or no, as in “no, you’ve got it all wrong!” ?

“Ah, should we… survey the cliffsides then?” Thoroughly confused, Ingo had no idea if he was even interpreting things right anymore.

“Phi!!” Akari was definitely becoming more animated with her methods of disagreement. He was headed down the wrong track, surely.

“Alright then, do you believe it’s not even located within the coastlands anymore?” Ingo was trying to make sense of her adamant disapproval. “Should we set our destination somewhere else? But how far could it go? Surely as a natural water-dweller, I would assume it would be slow to leave the shore…”

“Phi-phi!” At some point during his rant, Akari had flopped off of her mochi patty and over to his arm, just to smack his wrist with a flipper. 

Ingo halted to turn his attention to her; ok, that was her ‘please stop and listen to me’ tone. He would know after being constantly subjected to it for two weeks. “I am sorely misinterpreting this, aren't I?”

Finally, an agreeable head nod. It seemed the complexity of this conversation needed more than just ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answers to maintain itself.   

And Akari was very much aware of that. She leaned over the side of the table and pointed down at his… waist? His thigh? The bench he was sitting on? It was admittedly hard to tell when she was gesturing with an amorphous flipper, as opposed to a clear finger.

“Um,” Ingo’s confusion put a stop to Akari’s attempts at pointing. She sat back and stared down at the wooden patterns on the table for a moment, clearly considering something, before she squeaked enthusiastically. Ingo watched as she held one of her flippers out stiffly in front of her, while wiggling the other in front of it. Big, determined eyes stared up at him intently the whole time, hoping he’d understand.

It almost looked like she was imitating the act of taking notes in a…

Oh!

“Are you requesting your pokedex?”

Akari nodded her head vigorously, seemingly happy he finally understood.

“Bravo!” Ingo mirrored her sentiments before it fizzled into a cough – that’s right, Akari had used it yesterday to try and communicate with him, pointing to words and pictures, and even attempting to write something at one point (it had taken a very long time and hadn’t been very legible in the end, but they could work on that). He turned to the side, reaching into his coat pocket in search of the waterlogged field book. In the moment, he had practically forgotten he had it on him. “Alright, let me retrieve it for you.”

Maybe she had a map in her pokedex? So she could point out the location they needed to go to next? Or perhaps she even had something recorded within the pages about this pokemon she has swapped with, that could give them a hint as to what happened-

“ Starr! Rrravia!!”

Sudden, frantic squawking and flapping of wings directly by Ingo’s right ear jumpstarted his heart. A loud bang as his knees hit the underside of the table, causing the dinnerware to clatter. Almost dropping the pokedex, Ingo jerked his head back up to see the very two people he was attempting to avoid for Akari’s sake, now heading right for his tableside.

The culprit of the excited squawking — their curious staravia, Fancy — was pecking around his plates on the table. 

“Ingo! Where have you been?”

Great. That sentence was sharp with thorns.

“Ah, Miss Kana, Miss Miki… Hello.” Ingo’s tone wasn’t as warm as he supposed it could have been, noticeably so. But then again, five days of agonizing over horrific hypotheticals in the wilderness had drained him of social courtesy in the presence of unwanted company. 

Plus, he couldn’t entirely help his aching throat from sounding like it was full of rough gravel.

A quick, not-so-inconspicuous survey of the table between calibrating blinks as Fancy continued to poke around the table. Among his dinnerware, Akari was suddenly nowhere in sight — something that was equal parts relieving and terrifying to him.

Was she hiding from them?

“It’s been five days since we last saw you! Were you out in the wild this entire time? We were starting to wonder if something happened!” Miki told him. 

“Ah- no, no-” Ingo’s words stalled, attempting to simultaneously search around the table, and keep a proper conversation going. Fancy seemed interested in the general area by his plate. Ingo attempted to see where its gaze was pulled, in case it had caught a glimpse of something small and blue. “Besides a rather sore throat and tired cab, I am alright, I can assure you. I was solely searching for Miss Akari. And unfortunately, I- ahem , I still am.”

Ingo hoped that wherever the teen was, she understood the double intent and kept close to him. He didn’t want Fancy finding her before he did.

A look of empathy crossed Miki’s features (or maybe it was pure pity; Ingo was acutely aware of how worn down he looked, and his broken voice had involuntarily cracked. It could have easily been mistaken for swelling emotion), but Kana only seemed to grow annoyed at his words. Ingo wasn’t surprised, as he knew how she felt about how much time he was putting into searching. 

Kana never stated her feelings outright, but her behavior had made it very clear to him that she was irked. Irked that Kamado was basically allowing him to drop half of his work to voluntarily look for Akari out of his own volition, while she was ordered to do the same thing.

The survey corps are already looking for her, Kana had practically scolded him the last time she saw him, five days ago when he was first heading out to search. That’s our job, because we’re the survey corps. You’re not. We’ll find her, but we need you here at the training grounds, doing your assigned job at least some of the time, ok?

She used ‘we’ a lot, most frequently during perplexing admonishments like this. Ingo sometimes wondered if Kamado was aware of just how much implied authority Kana utilized to try and inflate her words’ influence. She talked to him like she was Kamado, sometimes. 

Or like she was Zisu, at least. But Zisu would never talk to him the way Kana tried to, even if she technically had the authority to.

“Well, have you found anything helpful yet?” Miki seemed to not be keeping an eye on her staravia at all. To Ingo’s slight exasperation, she either didn’t notice or didn’t care that Fancy was now pecking at his plate of mochi. 

“Ah, I recovered a few things that might be of help, I suppose.” Ingo collected his plate and bowl, pulling them a little closer within the protection of his arms. Fancy glared.

“Well, that’s good…” while it was more appreciated than Kana’s hard silence, Ingo could not tell whether Miki was being pitiful, sympathetic, or unbelieving with that painfully, poorly-hidden sorry tone.  

However, his statement was not a lie. Just a vague truth. He had found Akari and some of her belongings, now they just needed to find her body, from what he understood. 

…Though, right now he was still vying to know where Akari herself was at this moment. With both himself and Fancy searching for her and coming up with nothing, Ingo was practically convinced she was not anywhere on the table, which worried him.

Speaking of the feathery pokemon, the absence of exposed food now left Ingo’s cup as the only lure. Fancy stepped closer, curious eyes fixated on the drink. Ingo could see their intentions coming from a mile away, and he was not about to have hot tea spilled all over the table and himself.

“Fancy, please-“ Ingo grabbed the cup right before they could poke their beak into the drink, sheltering it close with his food.

“Starr!” Fancy squawked indignantly at the action, flapping their wings. It hopped the rest of the way across the table to invasively jab at Ingo’s hand, most likely in an attempt to snatch his cup.

“Fancy! No!” Miki finally took initiative to admonish her poorly-mannered companion, reaching over the table to pull her staravia out of Ingo’s personal space. The scolding finally forced Fancy to flutter down to the ground, squawking all the while. With a sour disposition, they had to settle for simply pecking at the dirt instead. 

“Sorry! I think Fancy’s just looking for your little friend!” Miki attempted to brush off Fancy’s behavior, as she always did. “…Where is that strange pokemon that’s always clinging to you?”

While straightening his coat and brushing stray feathers off himself, Ingo almost laughed at how desperately he wanted that question answered himself.

“Ah, Passenger uncoupled itself from me, and I am no longer sure of its whereabouts.” Again, a truthful statement. And again, Ingo hoped wherever Akari was, she could recognize the inherent worry that the phrasing implied.

Though maybe, Akari had retreated somewhere into one of his coat pockets. Was that why Fancy had been poking at him? Ingo kept his eyes on the two women, but all focus shifted to what his fingers were feeling out, his hand subtly moving to pat his coat pockets from under the table. Where was she-?

“What is that?” An element of morbid curiosity entered Kana’s voice, the woman speaking up for the first time in this whole conversation. The tone alone made Ingo’s hands freeze midway in one of his pockets. 

“Is that… Akari’s pokedex?”

“Her pokedex?” Miki peeked over the edge of the table to get a better look. “Ooh! Did you find it out there?”

“O-oh. Well-” Oh dear. They’d seen the waterlogged notebook in his lap when he leaned away from Fancy. 

All things considered, it was only Akari’s pokedex. But then again, it was Akari’s pokedex. Gut reaction told him it would be best that Kana and Miki not know he has that right now.

Why? It would cause trouble. How? Ingo wasn’t entirely sure yet. But he was holding onto Akari’s missing things. He hadn’t shared where they had been found with the Galaxy Team. He had Akari herself with him while the survey corps were still breaking their backs looking for her. He sort of knew what had happened to her, and kind of felt like he could piece together how to fix this.

There was a lot to uncover, all things considered. Putting it like this, Ingo for the first time properly reflected on just how much he was withholding. And it wouldn’t have mattered if he really only learned the truth about all of this yesterday — if Kana found out about even one of these things, he knew she would not spare any empathy if the narrative was in her hands.

Nervous jitters begin to tickle inside his ribcage. This felt comparable to suddenly realizing the tallgrass fields were unnervingly quiet because they weren’t empty.

“-Yes.” 

That sounded much too certain, he chastised himself. Add some uncertainty.

“I… believe it is, at least?”

Ingo tentatively picked up the bloated bundle of notes to show it to them. People showed things to other people when they had nothing to hide, and he certainly had nothing to hide. Definitely not. 

“I, ah, happened upon it while searching; the contents of the pokedex have sustained significant water damage, as you can see.” Ingo carefully flipped through a few curled pages to prove it, before setting it back down beside him. “So it is difficult to tell for sure. I was on track to deliver it back to Professor Laventon for confirmation, but when I arrived, it appeared his station had already closed for the day.”

A truthful statement. Laventon’s office was dark, because at some point in the warden’s absence, the professor had most likely joined the last survey corps group on their last departure. Laventon frequently went out searching for Akari too when he could, he simply was not as solitary as Ingo when it came to his methods.

But it didn’t seem like the two women cared much about that, though. At least Kana didn’t — she just stared at him with the same look she’d been giving him throughout the entire conversation. 

Hands on her hips, it was beginning to feel like she was trying to come across like she was expecting something.

Expecting him to say something.

Ingo swallowed uncomfortably, this time more from social pressure than any kind of sore pain. Maybe he missed an obvious social queue… the majority of his attention was still lingering around what was going on beneath the table, if he was being honest.

Fancy had sneakily begun pecking at one of his shoes, furthering his suspicion that Akari was somewhere on his person. Ingo gave himself another subtle pat-down from under the protection of the table. She was definitely not anywhere within his coat pockets. If she was, he would have expected to feel a damp flipper bap his searching hand in response by now.

Where was she?? Nervous energy was continuing to build, only able to be somewhat subdued by a bouncing leg. 

“So… is that all?” Kana’s barbed voice broke the silence, somewhat refocusing Ingo’s scattered attention.

Where was this even supposed to be going? Why were they still lingering around? The conversation felt awkward with how it was dragging, like they were beating around the bush. Ingo just wanted this interaction to be over, so that Kana and Miki could leave, and he could properly look around the area for Akari, and stop stressing over the idea that Fancy had grabbed her-

“Ah, I believe so?” Perhaps that would have sounded more authentic if he didn’t have so much urgency to just end things.

Wrong Answer. Kana, clearly exasperated at this point, exaggerated a sigh as she rolled her eyes. 

“Our training session, Ingo. You weren’t here for my training session today. After you told me you would be.” She crossed her arms, her tone suggesting the experience was entirely unpleasant. “I had to train with Zisu.” 

Poor Zisu, Ingo’s tired mind lamented what his manners would never let slip past his lips.

“You did?” Ingo said instead. “There was no need; I’m certain we rescheduled due to my expected absence. But not to worry, I will still be on schedule for it tomorrow morning.” 

Kana’s hard glare gained a bewildered quality to it, as if Ingo’s skin had suddenly turned blue. “What? Today was the reschedule, Ingo.”

“It was?” Ingo’s split concentration once again reconvened on the conversation for a moment. “…It was.”

That’s right. He had scheduled a training session with Kana the day he was supposed to get back, having only been set to make up for another session he had missed earlier in the week. 

But after finding Akari’s things scattered across the beach yesterday, he had sort of deviated from his plans of going back to Jubilife that evening. He had been so distraught, that he couldn’t see himself in any state to be around others, and still keep his dignity. 

It seemed all the physical exhaustion and roiling emotions had scrambled his schedule and fed him unchecked assumptions — an extra day in the wilderness did not mean a pushback on the training session.

That’s why Kana had approached him. She was looking for an apology from him, or an explanation at the very least. And he had given neither.

The stark realization that he had failed to meet the schedule he had set brought an annoying, unwanted flash of heat to his face. 

Ingo found himself sitting up a little straighter, haste fumbling his words. “Oh dear. I- I greatly apologize Miss Kana, I didn’t mean to derail like that. Genuinely, I had forgotten-”

“You always forget,” Another frustrated response was the harbinger that warned Ingo of the oncoming storm.

“Kana, don’t,” And Miki’s hasty attempt to quell it further told him that this had apparently been brewing for a few days now.

“Ingo, this is what I’m talking about.” Kana ignored Miki and took over. And because he’d already strained his voice way too much to speak over her quickly-raising anger and reclaim the conversation, Ingo let her. “You keep doing this! For almost two weeks now, you’ve been throwing aside your responsibilities at the dojo for something that other people are already taking care of-”

But they were all looking in the wrong place anyways, Ingo added a mental footnote. 

“-and you’re not even following whatever you do manage to schedule!” Kana continued, none the wiser to his annotation. “People like me depend on those schedules you set, you know. I spent my only break in between these search expeditions waiting around for you, when I could have been resting instead! And look at you; correct me if I’m wrong, but I bet you’re going right back out there again first thing tomorrow, if not tonight!”

No correction was hurriedly inserted into her terribly brief breath between words, for really, she was not wrong.

“Ingo, I know Akari is missing, but you’re not helping anyone like this.”

Ingo’s frown deepened, not out of indignance or hurt, but as a plain reflex to opposition. He might have felt deeply offended by such blunt words, or even taken them to heart under different circumstances. But it was hard to truly do either when Akari was alive and well (wherever she currently was at this table), and it was solely because of him. 

“ Ok, Kana,” Slightly horrified at the way her friend was talking to someone who was already clearly so spent, Miki pulled back on Kana’s shoulder. Ingo’s pulled frown must have given off an upset quality. “He’s just worried about her.”

“Aren’t we all?” Kana retorted. “We’re all looking for her! The difference is, we’re taking shifts to juggle all the other responsibilities we have around here. And he- ” an accusatory finger jabbed at Ingo. “-is not. Tomorrow, I’ll be surprised if he even still has a job here once I have a talk with Kamado.” 

Miki actually appeared offended enough on his behalf to let out a little gasp, which surprised Ingo a little; normally, her reputation as Kana’s malleable friend led to stubbornly agreeing with her. Throwing a quick glance at him, she pulled Kana a few steps away to squeeze half-audible whispers through gritted teeth.

Now Ingo’s frown really did emphasize a conflicted expression as they conversed about him. While objectively Kana’s entire viewpoint did come off as insensitive, Ingo couldn’t help but feel he wouldn't be so torn on the treatment if he hadn’t failed to meet the expectations that he himself had set.

The biggest problem here was that Kana felt she had been stood up by him several times now, because all things considered, even if they had been accidents, she had been.

Really, the only reasonable path forward was to apologize to her, offer another solution to the dilemma, and hope that went over well. First and foremost, he wanted to right his wrongs where he could. However, he couldn’t deny that a tiny part of him was motivated to just get them out of here quickly, so he could find Akari.

But a genuine apology required talking. Lots of talking. And Ingo felt his vocal cords were running out of steam for that. 

Kana and Miki were still currently arguing at the end of the table. Ingo grabbed his cup and tipped it back, expecting another swallow of hot tea to soothe the fire in his throat long enough to present an offer. He could get this over with quickly, then-

To say his poor heart stopped would be an understatement when he felt a loose, lukewarm blob bump against his lips with a warning squeak.

Tea sprayed out his nose and between his teeth. Whatever Kana and Miki were saying halted abruptly as Ingo lurched forward, choking harshly into his cup. Only after the dramatic reaction had calmed somewhat did Ingo become aware the flow of words had stopped around him, and he was being stared at intently.

“Wrong… wrong track, apologies-” He half-bluffed, wiping at his mouth as he continued to cough through his words. “-I’m alright.”

“You sure?” Miki extended.

“Yes.” Ingo attempted to regain composure and clear his throat as he moved to protectively place a hand over his cup. 

So that’s where she had been. 

Perhaps Fancy’s attempts to get to his tea had been more deliberate than he thought. But at least he had found her. 

“Look Ingo, it’s clear you’re… working through a lot of things right now.” Kana gestured to him with a palpable irritation that only sharpened otherwise-understanding words. “Just forget it, tomorrow-”

“-No, please stay for a moment.” Ingo hated interrupting Kana, especially considering where he stood with things right now, but he had to correct these tracks. “Miss Kana, I would like to propose an apology. A proper one.”

Despite it being the last thing his aching legs wanted to do, Ingo pushed himself to stand up from the table. A proper apology required approaching it and addressing recipients with seriousness and respect, and it just seemed more genuine not to do things while sitting down. He kept his cup of tea within his hands, though.

“One must conduct themselves with integrity, and keep to their expected schedules for those that depend on it. And yet, I failed to arrive at our set destination yesterday. For that Miss Kana, I deeply apologize, and I fully intend to make it up to you. Your time is important.” 

Kana said nothing, simply looking him up and down. Perhaps she was sizing up his apology, expecting more. Or maybe she was even questioning if he was in any state to uphold such a thing, believing him prone to forget yet again. And Ingo could see where she was coming from; her knowledge of his true situation was slim to none, and he was aware of how flippant things must have looked to someone who did not know.

Could she cut him a little more slack? Maybe (definitely). But he had essentially neglected her twice now. 

And he did genuinely feel bad about that. 

“Now, I wrongfully assumed my schedule included our training tomorrow morning, and as such, I have already set aside time for it. That offer is still open. I am well aware my word may not mean much to you at the moment, but would you be available at that time to begin the training session we missed?”

“I’m leaving early tomorrow with a group to comb through the highlands. I won’t be here. Remember?” A flat, barbed response unapologetically slapped Ingo across the face.

“Alright then…” Shake it off. Ingo cleared his throat again, to the point where it was becoming annoying. “When are you scheduled to return?”

“Three days. Could be four.”

More of a push than a slap this time. “Well then, when you return, I will be stationed here, ready for two consecutive training sessions with you… If you are up for that, of course.”

Kana seemed to consider it. Miki nudged her.

“I can do that.” Her tone suggested the compromise was still unsatisfactory to her.

Another nudge from Miki.

“And I’m sorry. About what I said about you. I know you’re trying to do a lot.” Rather mechanical words that practically creaked with how rusty they were. But it was an unexpected surprise all the same, even if it had been prodded out. “But Ingo, you can not forget again. Or I will tell Kamado about every single instance you’ve left me waiting within this week.”

“Of course, of course.” Quick to end the conversation on surprisingly agreeable terms, Ingo nodded his head. “That is more than reasonable. It will not happen again, I can assure you.” 

“For your sake, I’d hope not.” It seemed as if injustices had been made right. Satisfied enough with the outcome, Kana turned to leave. Miki was quick to follow, with Fancy trailing behind. “I’ll be seeing you as soon as I get back, Ingo. Don’t go get yourself lost in the wilderness again.”

“Ah, likewise,” Ingo wondered if she could even hear him with his limited volume. “Please enjoy a good rest of your evening, both of you.”

Miki at least waved goodbye to him as they moved on towards the Galaxy Hall. Ingo stood there in silence, posture rigid until the two women were out of sight. As soon as the hall’s doors closed, Ingo sat back down and leaned closer over the cup, finally removing his hand from over the top. 

“Miss Akari!” He whispered into the escaping steam. “I am proud of you for following procedure and hiding… but really? Of all places, it had to be in here? ”

“Phi!” The green-tinted liquid stirred, and a pair of miffed brown eyes blinked back up at him from within the ripples. Ingo didn’t need her to write it out for him to understand what she was implying.

“I didn’t know; I hadn’t seen where you had gone.” His stern features softened some. “I apologize, but next time, please board elsewhere.”

“Phi-phi phi,” Akari went on about something entirely indecipherable to Ingo, but it died down as she caught something. Ingo followed her gaze to spot Beni’s magby finally approaching their table, his honey and Akari’s water on the tray in its hands. 

It had certainly taken long enough! But Ingo gave Magby some slack, he knew the Pokémon was rather shy, and had probably been waiting to approach the table after such incensed company had left. It looked like it was expecting a comment on its tardiness regardless though, keeping its eyes on the tray so as to avoid a stern look.

“Thank you, Magby. Your service is much appreciated,” Ingo made sure to properly thank the Pokémon as it finished unloading the tray’s contents with shaky claws. Bashfully (and somewhat elated), Magby chirped at him before turning to take the tray back inside, leaving them both in peace once again.

Akari immediately leapt from Ingo’s tea, splashing into her cup of water.

“Better?” Ingo asked, already pouring the honey into his cup.

“Phi,” Akari splashed the water with her flippers in satisfaction before submerging.

Stirring the honey into the contents of his tea briefly, Ingo tipped it back and swallowed the improved remedy – the relief was instant. Much better. “I agree.”

“Phi-phi!”

Akari’s give-me-your-attention tone. Ingo was pulled out of his little piece of heaven to see Akari leaning over the side of the cup, jabbing a flipper over at the Galaxy Hall.

“Uh,” A few days ago, it would have been impossible to parse the correct intent from such a non-specific gesture. But now that he knew this was Akari he was talking with, and knowing how much Akari liked to snoop when she could, he thought he knew what (or in this case, who) she was wanting to talk about with him. “...that conversation went better than expected, didn’t it?”

“Phi-phi,” Akari nodded her head with a compliant tone. Whew, that was what she was wanting to talk about.

“I know, I only got my head bitten off once,” Ingo’s attempt at an amused tone cracked terribly, and he stopped to take another drink of tea. “Though, there is some good in this. Now that tomorrow’s schedule has been cleared, It seems we’ll be able to depart first thing tomorrow, and head back out for the coastlands.”

Akari had been largely passive from within her cup, but it seemed these words put a fire under her. With a squeak, she practically threw herself out of her water and flopped across the table. It startled Ingo when she just kept going right over the edge after a quick peek over the side at his lap.

“Miss Akari, what are you-!” Ingo instinctively reached to break her fall, but lethargy slowed his reflexes, and she plopped the rest of the way down onto her Pokedex, still set down on the bench beside him. “-what are you doing? Be careful!”

“Phi! Phi!” Stern squeaking and both flippers smacking the Pokedex’s cover was her only response. 

She urgently wanted to tell him something, and it was more complex than what a simple guessing game of yes and no could decipher.

“Alright, alright, one moment,” Ingo picked up the pokedex and pushed his plates back to make room for it on the table, balancing Akari on top of it all the while.

She got to work instantly, attempting to pry the cover open until Ingo gave in and opened it for her- 

“Here, just let me know when to stop,”

-thumbing through the pages and waiting for an indication of some kind.

Ingo flipped past pages of maps, hand-written observations on pokemon, and informational notes on local flora. But Akari made no sound or movement, so Ingo kept thumbing through them. Only once the pages began flashing blank faces did she reach up to bap his hand.

“Here?” Ingo stopped, exposing two blank pages to her.

“Phi!” A resounding yes. So, blank pages… she was going to write or draw something for him then, he assumed.

“Alright,” Ingo pulled out the pokedex’s writing pen from where it was clipped on the side and handed it to her. Her tiny little appendages wrapped around it as best they could, and Ingo leaned forward to watch as she began to scribble on one of the pages. 

T…  

Perhaps it was because he had been setting his mind towards nothing but marking and reaching certain destinations for weeks , but Ingo’s mind couldn’t help but jump right to a location. Tranquility Cove? Or maybe Tombolo Walk? Both locations were not exactly on land. But there were sheltered places amongst rocks and ship wreckage near both areas. Would the phione possibly seek out shelter there? Ingo just knew that he’d find a way to them if that’s where they needed to go-

A…  

TA? Neither place had A as the second letter. There goes his previous train of thought.

She definitely was not writing out a location. She could have used one of the maps for that anyway. It was going to be a message.

And this message was going to take a while, Ingo assumed. With the limited mobility of her flippers and the size of the pen in comparison to her, the work was rather messy and slow going. He resigned himself back to his rice and potato mochi as she continued – both would have normally been considered disappointingly cold by now, but if Ingo was honest with himself, it was still leagues better than anything either of them had eaten in days out in the wild. 

When she was done, Akari dropped the pen with a slick splat and leaned to the side, glaring up at him expectantly as she pointed with her flipper. 

Ingo’s hypothesis had been right – on the page, in big, boldly-scrawled yet shaky writing, it read:

TAKE A BREAK!!!

Three exclamation marks. She was serious.

Stalling on the words, Ingo mulled them over for a moment. “Miss Akari, I can assure you that I am alright, and will be even better tomorrow. Our departure is already scheduled, and I intend to keep with it.”

No squeaking, no shaking of her head, and no upset glare like he half-expected – Akari simply turned back around and continued the taxing effort of scrawling words across the page. When she had once again finished, she jabbed her flipper at the words with surprising vigor, then repeated the agitated movements at him.

NO TRIP. NEED REST

It surprised him a little, how adamant she was about this when her actual body was at stake. But it was clear she just wanted him to regain some lost energy, instead of trying to expunge even more from a tank that was already empty.

And perhaps she was right in wanting this. He had just spent five days out in the wild. Could he really put himself through something like that again? His will said yes, of course he could. But it was paying no mind to the aching in his muscles, already groaning at the thought of going back out there. 

And honestly, what could he do like this? A sore throat. A headache feeding off of sleep deprivation. A deep aching that one night’s rest realistically wouldn’t pacify. Maybe if he had managed his cab a little better out there… but that was nothing more than a hypothetical now. 

“Alright. I will… rest my engines.” Breaking up the sentence with a sigh, Ingo finally relented. He leaned forward against one aching arm as he gently massaged tired, darkened eyes with the other. He was in need of some decent sleep. “I do suppose the service is sorely needed. We will stay here tomorrow.”

Celebratory squeaking started up. A cold, wet flipper was felt against his wrist, bapping it animatedly – the only way she could really say thank you in this state. Despite his display of exhaustion, Ingo let out a quiet sound of amusement. 

“Just for a day,” He reiterated. “And I still intend to be productive in my search efforts tomorrow. Perhaps just within Professor Laventon’s numerous books this time, rather than the coastlands’ beaches.”

The agreement was still plenty satisfactory though, it seemed. Akari clapped her flippers together in appreciation and made her way back to her cup of water. 

Good, Akari had been pacified. Now Ingo just had to pacify his stomach – once he finished his meal here, he could finally go to sleep… in an actual bed! Ingo told himself he had been more than ready to go back out into the wilderness, but he couldn’t deny the thought of resting with an actual stuffed mattress under his back and soft blankets keeping him in a tight, warm hug until noon sounded like a dream.

“Alright now, give me just a moment, and then we can depart.” Ingo closed Akari’s pokedex and pulled his plates back towards him. Akari watched lazily from her cup as he resumed eating and drinking what remained, and while it only took a few minutes to put it all away, by the time Ingo looked back to see how she was doing, he could see she had fallen asleep. Drifting around lazily at the bottom of her cup, little bubbles were slipping up to the surface as she slept.

Quite a different energy from what she had been displaying earlier. She had apparently been much more tired than she had let on. Very in-character for her, honestly.

“Miss Akari,” Ingo tapped her cup gently after stacking his empty dinnerware together, freeing a small cloud of bubbles from her mouth in surprise. “Are you ready to depart now?”

A half-asleep nod. She was barely with him.

“Alright,” Ingo lugged himself off of the bench and stretched contentedly. “Next stop then, the dojo’s spare unit-” An intrusive yawn in between. “-All aboard.” 

Slipping Akari’s pokedex back into his coat pocket, Ingo held his hand out to her, waiting for her to hop on. She flopped onto it sluggishly with a little yawn, and he brought her up to set her back within the familiar spot of his coat collar as he started for the training grounds.

The street was much quieter now. The sun had set a while back, and the dark strip was rather barren with barely any activity in sight. Ingo didn’t mind, though. As he walked, he cleared his throat; tonight’s situation had turned out relatively ok, but if that happened again, it might not go as well the second time around, and he had to address that. He hoped Akari was awake enough to listen to him.

“Ah, Miss Akari… I would like to discuss something real promptly, if that is alright. I want to admit that well, traveling down this route is much rougher than I had anticipated.” Ingo turned his head slightly in her direction as he headed up the hill for the gates, hoping she was listening. “I understand your feelings on this and am trying to honor them. But tomorrow, if we are going to relieve ourselves of some stress at your request, I ask that we also relieve a few others of theirs. Tomorrow, if he returns back to the station, we must bring Professor Laventon up to speed on your situation.” 

“Phi! Phi!” Ingo’s frown pulled at the immediate argumentative squeaking that started up. It had taken a moment to kick in, but she was definitely listening, and it had certainly woken her up a little. At least she was paying attention.

“He is worried sick about you. I am sure he would be relieved to know you are alright.”

The squeaking began to lean more on the desperate side. Ingo felt a cold flipper bap his neck a few times.

“Now, you know he would not discuss your predicament with others if you requested, including Kamado. Your current situation will be safe with him. You must know that.” Ingo stopped outside the dojo’s doors, but kept himself from entering.

“Phi!”  

That was her correctional tone. He had misinterpreted her reasons. A proper glance over at his shoulder – Akari had been staring up at him, but she averted her gaze at the possibility of eye contact.

Sheepish. 

She was embarrassed.

“Miss Akari… I could not imagine him becoming angry at you, given the circumstances.” Ingo recalled the day Akari left on her fateful trip to the coastlands. She had told him that Laventon had suggested she take someone with her, and Kamado had required it. He would have gone with her, had she simply waited for him.

Ingo imagined Laventon would feel a lot of things if he revealed that the small pokemon he had gotten a glimpse at a few times over these last two weeks was actually Akari. Joy, relief, confusion… maybe disappointment for disregarding his suggestion, but not anger. Not in that moment, surely. Ingo could not possibly see Laventon getting upset when faced with the impossible truth that Akari was alive – he’d be too busy celebrating. The man’s optimism always seemed to outweigh any possible anger of his.

Kamado would probably be a different story. But they would not get into that. 

“I believe Professor Laventon would simply be appreciative to know you’re alright.” Ingo attempted to reassure her. “You have seen how much he’s been worrying about you. He is feeling… very much like I was before I had known. Even if he is not past admonishment upon realizing, it may still be rather amiable in comparison to what you’re expecting. Wouldn’t you agree with that?”

“Phi-phiiiii-” Akari groaned, but the drawn-out tone suggested her concern gave way to reluctant agreement. 

“So, you understand what I am asking?”

A squeak that sounded agreeable.

“And you are alright with it?”

Another agreeable sound, but it was significantly quieter and more delayed.

“...Would you like to discuss it more in the morning?” Ingo could tell sleep was weighing heavy on her again.

A cold spot nudged against his neck. She was nodding her head while leaning against him, not even opting to make a sound anymore. Yep, he was losing her again.

“Alright,” Ingo finally slid open the dojo’s door. A part of him was a little relieved that it was unlocked – Zisu had still been leaving it open in case, just for him. He stepped through into the darkness, closing it back behind him. “We’ll talk about it more tomorrow, then. Thank you.”

[pokemonheritageposts]

I have finally finished my complete pokedex run of Pokemon Crystal, capping off by catching Celebi in Ilex Forest.

This is such a weirdly emotional moment for me. Ignoring that this is the culmination of hundreds of hours of effort, requiring me to play through Gold and Silver as well as two seperate playthroughs of Yellow just to get everything not available in Crystal proper, I have a very personal attachment to Generation 2. I'm pretty sure that it's the game I've spent the most time playing across my life.

I've been here since the beginning, Red was my first game and I loved it to bits. But Gold version is infinitely more nostalgic to me. It's the first game I was ever excited for. There was almost a mysticism about seeing all the new details in magazines, about Togepi, about Marill, about Donphan, about the new starters, as more details started to trickle in.

Then one day in 2000, I got a gift. A pirated gameboy cartridge with 20 games on it - including the Japanese version of Pokemon Gold. I couldn't understand any of it, and it couldn't save, so I could only play through as much of it as could be done in one sitting, since the Game Boy Colour ran off of AA batteries and couldn't be left running indefinitely.

I must have played that almost every single day for like a year.

The furthest I could ever get in one go was Ice Path, so everything after that was no man's land to me until the English game dropped. April 6th, 2001 - I remember that date clearer than I remember most of my family's birthdays. I got it, and I played the hell out of it. And nothing could have prepared me for what would happen after I finally beat the Pokemon League - getting to play through Kanto again. Getting to fight Red.

I loved it to pieces. Later, I even bought Pokemon Silver and Pokemon Crystal, despite that I grew up poor and could only afford about two new games a year. I hold these games so dear to me. Even with HeartGold and SoulSilver offering many QoL improvements and additional content, I still find myself more drawn to them. (Also, Crystal actually has some improvements that were left out in HGSS - I'd still say it holds some significant merit even with the remakes as they are).

Sadly, my original copies of all the Gen 2 games mysteriously vanished (presumably stolen by my dipshit childhood friend), so I wasn't able to play them for a long time. But coming back to it as an adult, playing it all again, reliving everything I loved about them the first time - it's all been incredible. And finally having done the last thing that's left to do in it, seeing the last piece of content from these games that was never available until the Virtual Console release? It feels like the end to a grand journey for me.

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

How about a sequel esk thing to the Chian-pao headcanons with reader introducing the crew to the fire fish as well?/lh

-salt anon

With Chi-Yu being the last of the Ruinous Treasures you captured, the gang wondered how terrifying and/or awesome it was going to be.

They only knew that it was a fire-type fish Pokémon, so they theorized that it would be the size of a Gyarados or Dondozo...or even bigger.

But imagine their surprise when you open the pokeball to reveal....a tiny goldfish with a flaming body and jade beads for eyes. Looking very meek compared to the rest of the fearsome group.

Its appearance was almost laughable, though Penny shushed Nemona, thinking it would be disrespectful.

Meanwhile Arven takes one look at the Pokedex and goes “...people have started wars over some..jewelry? Did they have nothing better to do?”

You just shrugged and go “probably”, while letting Chi-Yu float around you.

Fortunately, it has no desire to turn Paldea into a volcanic region and swim through magma-filled streets...

But only because it likes you for cleaning its beads, which it allows you to wear if it’s tired of the pokeball.

Nemona on the other hand thinks they look super stylish on you and wants to try them on herself.

Though ofc she’ll never ask you like a normal person if she can wear them for a little while...without much success.

“[Y/n]!! We should battle to see who gets to wear the infamous “Beads of Ruin” for the next hour!!!”

“...do you seriously wanna repeat history, Nemona?”

“...ohhh yeah I forgot. That would be a very bad idea.”

[kafus]

if you ever feel up to it, i'd love to hear how you got the mew. hearing stories about people and their pokemon is really fun.

SOMEONE TOOK THE BAIT LET'S GOOO i wanted to talk about thisSDFFDKS

anyway i got my hadou mew through basically a miracle encounter - back in 2020 i was buying a lot of older pokemon games to fill holes in my collection, either games i never owned or games that i lost over the years from childhood, and as for my missing gen 3 games, i ended up going for japanese copies of firered and sapphire instead of english because having foreign carts is neat but mostly they're just a lot cheaper. buying secondhand pokemon games is always fun because often times the seller doesn't wipe or even check the save file and especially if the save file has a lot of playtime, they're like time capsules from a stranger right. so both games come in and the sapphire has nothing interesting but i'm perusing the boxes of this firered and uhhh

LMAO my initial reaction says it all, i literally just found this thing on a completely random firered cart i bought! it was not advertised to have mew in it on the ebay listing, in fact the seller i bought from sells a LOT of imported japanese pokemon games (and other gba titles) so i imagine he just has a pile of these and he picked out a random one to mail me without so much as checking what was on it.

of course mythical pokemon on gen 3 carts are dubious, it's not like it's particularly hard to gameshark a mythical pokemon, especially considering that i've gotten a secondhand file before with shit like a box full of Deoxys caught at level 2 on the first route in hoenn LOL... so i was pretty serious about checking for legality on this thing as best i could - backed up the save file and inspected it in pkhex, all data was 100% accurate to the event and also reasonable RNG wise, like normal random IVs and stuff... checked for archived versions of this event mew, none of them were identical to online injectable ones, which means the owner couldn't have downloaded and injected it... and most of all, context clues

here's ancient pictures of this mew traded to my english leafgreen so it's readable for everyone - i had not done anything with this mew yet so it's completely untouched from how i found it here. we can tell from looking at this that whoever owned this mew was training it with the exp share as its still holding it and is level 23 despite being met at level 10, and the moveset... solarbeam, mega punch, dragon claw?? very random moveset that i can only imagine a child using. this mew looks like it was played with by its owner legitimately. additionally not shown here, the firered cart had a lot of playtime and like 2/3 of the dex complete, the boxes were full of pokemon that the owner had been breeding and a few unhatched eggs, like i hatched one and it was a completely normal eevee so they may have been getting extra eevees for pokedex purposes etc.

basically i cannot 100% confirm this mew was obtained legitimately without teleporting back in time and getting that japanese movie preorder bonus myself, but there is literally nothing strange about this mew and the save file it comes from is well loved and appeared to be played by a child doing normal pokemon stuff. so for all intents and purposes, this mew is definitely legit to me. actually insane happenstance. i have never gotten anything this crazy from a secondhand file before

think of it this way. some japanese kid in 2005 preorders a pokemon movie > he goes to the store to redeem it for a mew in person. in 2005. in japan. > he plays with the mew a bit > at some point he stops playing pokemon > he sells the game to some random american seller after never wiping the save or removing the mew > the american seller buys jp pokemon games in bulk to resell on ebay so he has a ton of them and probably doesn't check them for what's on them or the old save files > when i order it from this random ebay listing, the american seller picks a random fire red cartridge out of his bulk stash and mails it to me > it ends up in my hands 15 years later after the kid first got this mew

like holy shit it's a small fucking world huh

another old convo from the RM discord because i'm nostalgic about it, i had just started talking here at the time... i'm gonna be honest the ribbon master challenge and the people i met through it genuinely changed my life and this mew came into my life at the perfect time so it means a lot to me on top of being insanely cool

anyways i went on about that longer than necessary but yeah bless my mew i love him

[another-lost-mc]

JES YOU UPDATED, the kids miss you/j

I've been busy doing a lot of nothing, if that makes sense. Well, maybe not nothing - a random assortment of rl and blog odds-and-ends that don't seem very productive but I'm going to call it self-care. lol

(read more cause this got longer than I thought it would.)

I don't usually take March Break off work, but my empty schedule this year surprised me and I didn't really know what to do with myself. I spent the first few days fending off a persistent headache, then I spent some time re-watching Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel while I worked on some crossover/fusion potential with OM. Today the headache is back and I'm dog-sitting which shouldn't be as distracting as it is. (She's only a little Boston Terrier but my cats get all worked up about it even though they're the ones stalking her around the house for no reason.)

I've also been playing Honkai Star Rail. I have no idea what I'm doing but it's kind of fun. I want to give Genshin Impact a try too, but I'm not sure I want to play both. (I know dailies are optional blah blah blah but if I'm going to spend time doing busywork like that, I might as well go back to playing WoW.)

Someone sent me another ask about my current WIPs so I think I'll just ramble about them here.

The canon cast and OC post for surgery!anon. I'm trying to balance fluff and angst and realism and make it comforting at the same time (aka what I would've wanted to read before mine). There's some overlap with a post about Solomon's humanity that's it's own separate WIP.

Naming conventions in the Devildom and CR. These are my worldbuilding ideas to explain how Solomon has an established pact with Bathin (my OC for Mephisto's younger brother) since he's part of the Ars Goetia. This also discusses how those same ideas apply to Luke.

Fleshing out the angel OC stuff with Gabriel and Uriel. They're situated in the AU where MC is sent to the CR for the exchange program and not the Devildom which is why I haven't talked about them much. I have the fem!angel OC as well but I don't know what to name her (I want her to be like Zee where she's an "ordinary" angel). To be fair, she's probably not going to show up much outside of the story I originally wrote for her.

Genderbending-the-OCs anon, you have no idea what this is doing to me. It changes their kinks and their dynamics and how they would approach MC and I am mentally screaming into a pillow right now.

I've been writing directly in my Tumblr drafts lately, but I found a holiday fic for Solomon in my google docs. I thought it was a WIP but then I re-read it and it turns out I actually finished it and somehow forgot about it? Like...how does someone even do that. Anyway, do we want a smutty Solomon Xmas-in-March fic? (It's only holiday-ish because of a corny mistletoe joke on his part.)

On a random note, part of me regrets not making separate blogs for AT and my OCs (for organizational purposes) and I'm lowkey tempted to do it anyway.

If you read all this, you get a prize! Enjoy some chibis that I've been collecting like they're for my OC Pokedex. These are by sempa and ocha respectively.

[bagerfluff]

Espeon & Umbreon: Matchmakers Supreme

Aged Up Gladion x Non-Binary Reader

Prompt - Confessions

“Not again”, you sighed.

You glanced down at your Espeon as they rubbed themselves against an Umbreon. This was the fifth time this had happened and it was only Wednesday. You knew this Umbreon, it belongs to a trainer that you might have a little crush on.

You’ve seen him training at the beach. You never got the courage to talk to him. The first time you even talked to him was because your Espeon had run up to his Umbreon.

Unlike you, Espeon has more than enough courage. You had really tried to confess, but you never did. He was so cool and a little weird but you liked him. So you stared at the two Pokémon as they cuddled with each other, waiting for him to come.

“Umbreon?” You looked up at the voice to see him, Gladion, that was his name. Standing at the edge of the forest. Gladion looked as amused as you did, which was not amused at all. “Hey Gladion”, you said.

Trying to keep the blushing down.

Gladion didn’t look at you, just at the two Pokémon. Next to Gladion was his Lycanroc. The Lycanroc looked a little more amused than the two of you. “So how was your day?” You asked, knowing that it could be a while till the Pokémon wanted to leave.

“Good”, Gladion deadpanned. That was all you ever got. You wanted to get to know him better but he never talked to you. You were starting to give up. You didn’t speak for the rest of the encounter. Just waited till Espeon walked back to your side.

You said goodbye and left. You sped walked away till you were sure that Gladion couldn’t hear you. “Damn it”, you said. You were angry that you didn’t say anything. You should have at least asked to have a battle. You didn’t want to admit it but you watched Gladion when he trained.

Gladion was a really powerful trainer.

Plus, you wanted to know the name of the other Pokémon he had. You had never seen it and even the Pokedex didn’t know. You sighed and sat down at a bench that seemed to appear at the perfect time. Espeon jumped up on the bench and looked at you with a sad face.

You glanced over at them and petted their head. “Are you doing this on purpose?” You asked and Espeon smiled. You shook your head. You placed your arms on your legs and looked down at the floor. You sighed again and closed your eyes.

Why couldn’t you confess? You’ve done it before and have gotten rejected before. You weren’t that scared of being rejected. Maybe it was because you thought Gladion was really good looking.

Maybe you were deeper than you thought?

Unbeknownst to you, Gladion was having the same problem.

He had walked back to the beach where he was training but he didn’t start training again. He just sat down and stared at the sand. His face was a little red and he was glaring at nothing. Gladion thought you were good looking too.

But Gladion had no idea how to tell you or what to do with his feelings. This was all too confusing and new for Gladion. So Gladion didn’t do anything. He didn’t talk when he saw you. He didn’t look at you. And he didn’t say anything when he saw you watching him while he was training.

Gladion had no idea what to do.

It made him angry. You always smiled at him and made a point to talk to him. Gladion never responded with more than one word answer but you never stopped. Every time you smile it makes Gladion red in the face. You two weren’t even really friends.

You two have seen each other around. You were also trying to complete all of the Island Challenges. But that was it. Gladion had always found you interesting. He just didn’t know it meant he liked you until he talked to you for the first time.

The first time Umbreon and Espeon took a liking to each other. Gladion wanted to avoid you, avoid his feelings but with Umbreon always finding you and your Espeon. Gladion looked out onto the sea. The waves splashed against the shore line.

Washing Pokémon onto the beach every once and a while. Gladion watched this and let out a sigh. Umbreon was watching all of this. Umbreon knew that their trainer had a crush. They wanted Gladion to confesses but Gladion was a bit stubborn. So without Gladion realizing.

Umbreon left to find Espeon, and you.

You were still sitting on the bench questioning your life when you heard Espeon jump off the bench. You glanced up to see Umbreon standing in front of Espeon. Your eyes widened and you jumped off the bench.

They were talking to each other and you could see worry on Umbreon's face. “Wha-”, you couldn’t finish your question before both of the Pokémon took off running. You ran after them yelling at them to slow down.

You ran with them though the town, through the forest, and eventually to the beach. When you got to the beach you stopped moving but Espeon and Umbreon didn’t. They kept running all the way to Gladion.

Who was sitting near the shore line. You only saw his back but you could tell that he was staring out onto the sea. Why did Umbreon go to you? Why did Espeon follow? Why did you follow? You watched in silence as Espeon and Umbreon walked up next to Gladion.

Umbreon on the right and Espeon on the left. Gladion noticed Umbreon first and turned his head to look at them. You couldn’t hear what he was saying but you could see his mouth moving. Umbreon gestures to Gladion’s other side so Gladion looked to his other side.

The minute Gladion saw Espeon he looked around till he saw you standing where the forest met the beach. You both looked at each other. Gladion got up and Espeon ran back to you.

They walked behind you and started to hit your legs with their head. It didn’t hurt but it was prominent enough that it pushed you forward. “Hey hey hey”, you said while looking at Espeon.

When you looked up you saw that Umbreon was doing the same thing to Gladion. Gladion looked as amused as you. Once you and Gladion were only a few feet away from each other that’s when they stopped.

Espeon and Umbreon stopped pushing you two but they had a look on their faces. You couldn’t place it but you knew what Espeon was trying to tell you.

Confess.

You sighed. You regretted ranting to Espeon about your crush on Gladion. You looked up from Espeon to see Gladion looking at Umbreon. You suddenly got cold feet. You were scared and nervous. “Hey Gladion”, you said, trying to break the tension.

“Hey”, Gladion said back and that made you clench your fist. You should get this other with. Gladion was thinking the opposite. He wanted to run. He wanted to get out of here. He was blushing when he first saw you.

Gladion was right now glaring at Umbreon.

He knew what Umbreon was trying to do, and he hated it. Both Espeon and Umbreon shoved their heads against the both of you again. This pushed you and Gladion closer, so close that you were sharing air when you breathed.

You both looked up at the same time and both of you blushed. You were looking right into Gladion's eye, those bangs looked annoying. Gladion’s eyes looked beautiful though.

A shining green that puts emeralds to shame.

But you wanted to look into both of Gladion’s eyes. So you did. You had no idea what came over you but you reached up and brushed Gladion’s bangs out of his face. You held them out of the way and looked into both of his eyes.

You noticed Gladion’s blush spread to his ears. It looked cute. Gladion didn’t protest what you were doing but you felt him tense. So you drew your hands away and let the bangs fall back. “I like you”, you said.

They came out of nowhere but they were perfect. Gladion blushed more and looked away so you couldn’t see it. Gladion stumbled over words but you knew what he was trying to say. You understood why Gladion never looked at you or talked to you. And you had Umbreon and Espeon to thank for that. 

“It’s okay”, you smiled at Gladion, “I know”

[adobe-outdesign]

Have you done regigigas?

I mentioned in my 'regi reviews that Registeel's my favorite, and while that's true, I also like Regigigas a good deal. I do think it has a few issues, but the concept of a giant golem that's powerful enough to not only have made the other 'regis but also move entire continents is just awesome.

Visually, it's pretty good. I love how it has the braille-like eyes of the other Regis on the band on its head, but then also has multiple-colored eyes on top of that, bringing the total eye count to 13 (which is the amount of eyes I like to see on a legendary monster). I also like that those six colored eyes seemingly represent the three 'regis it made (at least before two more were added, but hey, that's not Regigigas' fault).

The white color and general appearance do a pretty good job of conveying its neutral normal-typing, and it definitely gives off the impression of it being big and powerful... which is ironic, because it's actually only like 12' in both the Pokedex and the games. What the hell, GameFreak? This thing should be dynamax size at all times AT LEAST.

However, I do find something about the design to be a bit off. I think it's the random black raised markings; it needs something to fill the space so it doesn't look too empty, sure, but there doesn't seem to be much rationale or thought put into the stripes. Maybe if they were gold so they weren't so "heavy" looking they wouldn't be so distracting.

I'm also not a huge fan of the bushes on its shoulders and feet. Don't get me wrong—I absolutely love the idea that this massive creature has been asleep for so long it's actually started to have plants growing on it. It's just that the plants feel too full—like it has bushes glued to it—and the placement of them is too even to feel natural.

I think the plant areas would've worked better if they were flatter, covered more of the body (this could also fix the issue with needing the stripes), and less symmetrical. A few hanging vines also could've looked sweet, and really would've helped to capture that ancient vibe it's trying to go for.

Still though, as a whole, I really like this one overall. It's abstract, slightly ominous and otherworldly, and has some interesting mythology behind it—everything I like in a legendary.

While I really dislike legendaries getting powerups in general, I actually wouldn't mind Regigigas getting something akin to a mega. It's saddled with Slow Start, but nowadays it's not really all that strong. Imagine a mega that reverts it back to how it used to be back in its glory days—no plants, maybe different markings/more eyes/bigger, and no slow start. Could be really sweet from a conceptual standpoint if nothing else.

Also, side note: Regigigas also happens to have the best anime cry of all time, in that it sounds like a malfunctioning computer trying really hard to boot up for the 17th time today:

[wishing-stones]

So, I've been replaying Pokémon games(FireRed and Emerald, specifically) and thought I could try and make up a team that resembles the R&R boys.

I came up with this:

(If Ren was a Pokémon, in my opinion, they would be an Aegislash)

I like these selections! I can see why you picked them all. I especially love the use of megas here, and Alolan Marrowak for Dust. Choice! Nightmare as a Tentacruel made me giggle and I adore the idea of Gallant Mega Gallade as Axe.

You inspired me to do my own take!

Nightmare is naturally Darkrai, because, let's face it, it's a perfect match. Darkrai's realm is of dreams, and it can inflict terrible nightmares onto others. It doesn't always do this maliciously, though, and it's generally used to chase people away from its territory. Humans are flighty creatures, though, so they villainize poor Darkrai for what it does. Darkrai's Shinny palate is purplish with teal eyes, too.

Killer fits Bisharp especially well. They generally command larger groups of Pawniard to do their dirty work for them, and will concede control to someone stronger if defeated. Killer is a competent leader, but bows out to Nightmare as the boss. Bisharp's shiny palate is also blue and yellow, which fits! Bisharp can also evolve into Kingambit, but I feel like Killer would purposefully not do that, even if he met the criteria for evolution. (Completely as an aside, shiny Bisharp was the first wild random shiny encounter I found in Scarlet! I think mine's a girl though. I'll have to check.)

Dust I thought would be nice as a Hissuian Typhlosion. Generally calmer than their Johtonian counterparts, they space out a lot and are thought to be watching the flow of life energies and looking for lost souls to eat. Kind of disturbing for such a placid-looking Pokemon, even if that process is said to purify the spirits as well. They're especially dangerous if they lose their temper, though, and their ghostly flames will burn everything and everyone around them until there is nothing left. Definitely sounds like someone we know.

Axe was tough to settle on, but I decided Kleavor would fit him well. They're generally rough, strong, brutish Pokemon... but at the same time, there's one that inhabits the forests of the Obsidian Fieldlands, and its caretaker is a small boy. Presumably, with socialization, these often violent Pokemon can be fairly tame and helpful to allies. The entire Scyther line gets a lot of bad rap for their appearance, and Kleavor is no exception... But, if you take the time to get to know them, they're loyal and steadfast.

Cross was perfect for Mega Absol, absolutely brilliantly done. Absol by itself is said to predict disasters, and its appearance is perceived as a bad omen. Mega Absol's very aura is so intimidating, it might kill the fainthearted from shock, and according to its Ultra Sun Pokedex entry, it hates this form because it doesn't like fighting in the first place. Cross isn't a huge fan of fighting generally, only if it's unavoidable, and he's good at it anyway, despite not enjoying it most of the time. He also absolutely sees himself as a bad omen, and tends to keep to himself.

Baggs was similarly a brilliant choice for Malamar. Not only are its hypnotic powers said to be the strongest of all Pokemon who possess them (yes, even the Pokemon deliberately named for it), but it has reportedly influenced historical events with them, and people don't often recall time spent under its control. This has been utilized by people, but for such a self-aware Pokemon (who often uses these abilities on its own for its own gain), it's up in the air whether or not it was the trainer's idea, or the Malamar's. Also, its pre-evolution is downright adorable. For something so calculating to come out of such a cute Pokemon is oddly fitting.

I also agree with Ren as Aegislash, or even Zacian, who requires its sword to achieve its true form and potential.

[pokemoncenter]

This may sound like an odd question at first, but it relates to a serious error ive made recently and i feel just terrible about it.

A question from a concerned trainer: Can most pokemon distinguish between an act of carelessness/recklessness against them and an act of intentional ill-will? (specifically, fish pokemon such as feebas/milotic)

Now, for context, the great 'error' ive made is that ive been frankly neglecting the general wellbeing of my best friend, my most beloved loyal companion; my Milotic, Athena. Ive only JUST realized it, and now i feel awful about it :<

You see, in an effort to better myself as a trainer and better understand the native pokemon of my region (I'm from Galar), i have recently been taking up the large task of filling up my pokedex. I have caught many different species of pokemon with my best and most strong of companions, Athena; and she has been nothing but the greatest of pokemon to me. But today a certain unusual behavior of hers made me realize that since taking up this pokedex-quest, i haven't been the trainer she deserves back.

Confession of a selfish trainer:

I had been using her as just a tool, a stepping stone, and not regarding her as the most beautiful and deserving friend as i had been before... We'd go out into the wild area for hours on end each day, battle after battle, never taking a break, never stopping to rest, only me and her, and even only ever healing when she physically could not go on further or without risking her serious harm. But by far the worst thing i did was never allowing her to battle these opponents...

Athena is very strong, and thus even on the toughest of wild area pokemon, even one attack would render them... uncatchable. So i made the same mistake over and over infinitely, of ignoring her, only focused on catching, never attacking, constantly letting her get bombarded with enemy attacks.

It was only when she began acting out against my idiocy- an apathy for battling, a profound distantness, with wavering obedience that had previously *never* faltered- that i realized i was doing something terrible, and doing it to my best friend no less... the worst was when i realized i hadnt had her healed at a proper pokemon center in over a week, despite non-stop battling. I had been using bag items, but those are surely no replacement for centers entirely, right?

Even after going on an amazing camping trip, making her favorite curry, and ensuring to give her my fullest attention whenever she even hinted at wanting it, i still feel like such a bad trainer, and an awful and dirty person, that i dont deserve the position i have, the incredible pokemon i have, their incredible stregth and loyalty...

So i ask one question:

Will/can she ever forgive me? (not that i would have done anything to deserve or be entitled to forgiveness after what i did...)

Sorry for the incredibly long length of this question, but i thought it was important to provide all context i had and get this off my chest.

Anonymous, I mean this in the kindest possible way:

Go to therapy.

I am no psychologist nor psychiatrist. I cannot diagnose anything, nor can I help. But you are displaying here a serious obsessive streak in a frankly worrying manner. To nonstop battle, to the detriment of your bonds with your closest friends, is one thing. But to not notice when over a week has passed in such a situation is extremely abnormal.

In addition- Yes, you messed up. You damaged your bond with your Pokemon. But you should not be asking me for how to repair this bond, or if this bond can be repaired. You should be looking to her. Milotic are intelligent, and can discern the difference between intentional and accidental harm in many ways, but extreme prolonged neglect... Judging from the lengths you have described, you can hardly call it 'unintentional' anymore. She is not sapient or sentient in a human way, but she still has emotions of her own. It is up to you to decide what is best.

And, to be blunt, dumping all of this in the inbox of a total stranger does not speak wonders to your mental state, either.

Go to therapy. Both for yourself, and for Athena.

[talonflamee]

POV: Volo character analysis but you’re only 6 hours into PLA

making good progress in pokemon legends!!! just defeated kleavor (what the HELL is kleavor btw, i’ve never seen that thing before in my life) and i’m having SO much more fun with it than before! rly glad about that cuz it was just sitting & collecting metaphorical dust lmao. i still have my qualms, but i definitely see the appeal now!

i’d like to talk a little about Volo. well, as much as i can from my current point in the game.

full disclaimer, i haven’t even gotten close to beating PLA and i won’t for probably another 40 hours, but i do know what ultimately happens with Volo. my thoughts here could honestly be totally incomprehensible or may change as i continue playing. but i just think he’s neat :)

so i don’t think Volo is like…... evil? don’t get me wrong, he absolutely fucked up and there are no excuses for what he does. but i see a lot of people in the fandom make him out to be this irredeemable horrible awful murderous twisted cycle path and i just. don’t agree with that.

i think people prioritize vilifying him solely to further angst with a certain pair of twins rather than focusing on the nuance that’s embedded into his character. i don’t want to skrunkli-fy him either, but i think it’s important to recognize that he’s kinda just Some Guy. he’s not a cult-leader, he’s not a mob boss, he doesn’t have people who follow or look up to him much (as far as i know); he’s just some dude who works in retail, and he has realistic, human flaws that result in self-destructive behavior that ultimately harms everyone around him. he strikes me as someone with a boatload of (likely religious) trauma and a desperate, insatiable desire to comprehend some kind of higher being. i hope to expand on this particular train of thought later

this brings me to one of my favorite narratives in pokemon. he has Three!!! pokemon that evolve through high friendship. compared to ghetsis, with a hydreigon that was forced to evolve before level 64, holds a life orb, and absolutely obliterates with frustration with the highest amount of damage possible—it absolutely hates ghetsis. but togekiss, lucario, and roserade can only be obtained when they adore their trainers, this cannot be forced.

and, interestingly, this is lucario’s pokedex entry in shield

Volo also has a genuine interest in archeology and history and he wants to share it with people! this guy can infodump like a champ, i really respect that !

so my opinion can certainly change, but these are a few reasons why i don’t think he’s irredeemable. i don’t like how complex characters are always reduced to all or nothing values in fandom spaces. there’s so much more to these characters than 100% evil or 100% good.

this is not helped by the fact that PLA just. doesn’t seem finished? which is completely understandable considering the amount of crunch these artists and writers had to deal with. but it’s still unfinished. most characters don’t have closure or even any development at all. i’m hoping on dlc at some point but. augh

soooo yea das it lol. i hope to write some actual characters studies and analyses for this guy the more i play!! this was just to get my thoughts down, i’ll probably revisit and add to it down the line!

[bhawk-goose]

I've just started watching the Pokemon anime from the beginning for some reason and I already have some thoughts. I'm just using this post as a journal.

Firstly, Professor Oak is a cruel man, he knew all the pokemon other than Pikachu were taken and still made Ash go through the process of picking up each.

Also, this show is like 30 years old so you'd think comedy would be different, but for some reason Pikachu playing baseball with is pokeball is the funniest shit ever to me.

Pikachu has already shown it is far too powerful. I get that pokemon are generally more powerful than humans, there's a reason trainers have their pokemon beat the shit out of wild pokemon on their behalf instead of just doing it themselves, but god. Pikachu knocked out twelve people, most of which were probably adults. AND Ash is also godlike, he was the closest to Pikachu. He was the one that the electric current went through to knock out the twelve people in the crowd, but he was fucking FINE. Just some scorch marks, that's it. This is a ten year old child, with that level of current he should be dead. He should be just a charred skeleton.

Has Ash done no research or is only being able to say their name specific to Pikachu? It's an animal, what the fuck did he expect? Does he also expect a response when he asks a dog who the goodest boy is?

Next, Pikachu hates being confined, so removing the waist-leash made sense, but why the gloves? They weren't even touching Pikachu, they were on his hands.

why is there boss music playing when Pidgey appears and Ash thinks he's gonna fight it? He's specifically fighting it because it's easy. Also I'm putting it on the same line cuz it's the same scene basically, what kind of yawn was that? Pikachu's "cha" was clearly supposed to be a yawn, but that did not sound tired at all. That is what yawns would sound like if we did them when we had too much energy.

remember when I said trainers have their pokemon beat the shit out of wild ones on their behalf? Apparently not Ash. I'm convinced that Ash is from our world, but doesn't know much about Pokemon, so he's just heard of it in passing and knows nothing. And when he was in our world he never encountered any non-human life.

"enjoy your last moments of freedom"? Ash isn't even trying to be a caring pokemon master, he is just straight up has no sympathy for them. I'm glad this kid never met an animal in the real world, at least pokemon can fight back a lot better.

What was that laugh at Ash's failure? That was far too human. I hate that. Pikachu is a straight up demon. New theory, ontop of Ash being from our world, there are demons(or some kind of demon equivalent) in the pokemon world. Pikachu is one of them, and pokeballs are like holy water to them. That's why Pikachu doesn't want to be in the pokeball.

I know this is pokemon, and there are tank turtles with no clear sign(to my knowledge) of how they get the water they shoot, and rats with unlimited supplies of electricity, and sentient magnets, but Pidgey is none of those. Pidgey is a normal fucking bird, nothing special about it. Where the fuck did it get that sand from??

the pokedex is fucking amazing. Earlier I thought it was just coincidental that it was a bit late, but no. That thing is alive, and it fucking HATES Ash.

why the hell do wild pokemon get jealous of trained pokemon? Just get in the ball and you'll be a trained pokemon. And trainers openly do not care about the pokemon they catch, Ash already showed that.

the way it cut straight from Ash and Pikachu passing a Magikarp in the river to a gyarados makes it look like that thing just evolved on the spot.

Misty not caring about Ash at all is completely fair. I don't care if she doesn't have any context to know what happenned, there is a hurt animal.

"Pikachu, this can't... happen" he's not wrong, it can't, it's only the first episode of the show and Pikachu's a main character.

"the town of pallet" sounds completely different from "pallet town", and why does Ash think he's a noble defender, he's ten, and he's defending a rat that kocked out twelve people.

Pikachu just created a giant sky beam. That was not a lightning strike, it was like a mile thick. Pikachu is not a demon, it's far too powerful, it is satan himself.

anyway, those were my thoughts on the first episode of the pokemon anime. It was like 11 minutes long, but I took like 30 to write about it. If I get any likes on this I'll keep posting my thoughts as I watch it.

[aviculor]

So, marinating on the lore and the reveals at the end of the storyline, there are a few discrepancies.

So Sada/Turo is dragging these pokemon out of their natural place in the timeline, right? Yet at the same time according to Heath a mere 200 years prior, these species already lived in Area Zero. Where were they before Sada/Turo came? Sada/Turo's dream was to recreate the paradise described in the Scarlet/Violet Book, but why would they need to do that? That wouldn't be necessary unless the book actually was fiction. Sada/Turo was making the contents of the book real using the "time machine" they built harnessing the crystals whose energy "enhance" machines for no explained reason. Furthermore, the straightforward time travel explanation for paradox pokemon is at odds with what Riddler Khu said. In the first place, why would a primitive relative of Amoongus still have pokeball patterning? Why would a primitive relative of Magneton exist at all, much less be made of steel with horseshoe magnets and bolts? Why would any descendant of any organic pokemon be a robot? You see, none of this makes sense...unless you consider that Sada/Turo was wrong about the nature of the crystals and what their device did.

It's not time travel, it's tapping into the power of an unknown legendary pokemon to make dreams into reality. Sada's favorite childhood book talks about savage, ancient versions of modern pokemon populating Area Zero. She makes it down to the bottom, and only finds ordinary garden-variety ones. Distraught, she works to build a machine that can pull pokemon from the past. Because she's using these crystals to power it, the machine produces results. It worked because she believed it would. It gave her the exact set of creatures described in her book, even though logically the probability of this would be infinitesimally small. And that probability would only decrease exponentially each time only one of those 8 specific pokemon appeared rather than any of the billions of other species that must have came and went over the epochs. No, because you see, the machine was not plucking pokemon from ancient history. It was plucking them from Sada's imagination. Same with Turo, obviously.

All of the paradox pokemon's pokedex entries talk about how they align with the creatures described in the book and were therefore named after them. Nothing about their biology or physiology or ecology. Not even the usual "hotter than the sun" "can jump over skyscrapers" bullshit. These pokemon aren't naturally-occurring. They're cryptids. They exist because Sada and Turo wished them to, and that's the same reason the professors were able to build sentient robotic doppelgangers despite that level of technology being explicitly stated to not exist in their world. Their desires resonated with the secret third legendary of the generation, a being with hexagonal crystalline plates forming a disc-like shell. But being rational-minded scientists, they concluded they were just brilliant inventors rather than the more unbelievable truth that they found a sentient orb that spreads crystals like a mold and bends reality according to the thoughts of those exposed to it.

The terastal phenomenon- the terastal orbs- is exposing pokemon to this unknown pokemon's energies and granting their wish. A wish to be a different type. A wish to be stronger. But what of the AI Sada/Turo that entered the "time machine"? Well, what if they returned in the DLC where all of this is revealed, and what if they were flesh and blood and ready to be the parent Arven always wanted?