#high stakes pokereality

[liminal-station]

@that-one-poison-trainer

TIME TO KILL GOD!! WHERE IS HE?! COWARD HE IS

You realize you’re only here because I let you in, right?

I hope you had fun playing the heroes in your little faerie-tale.

Now, it is time for you to face reality. MY reality.

Prince, annihilate them.

[clockwork-soul-heart]

[Closed RP start for @water-pokemon-appreciator, @madamemaya and @med-anon-z]

Magearna stands in the chamber at the center of the clockwork castle. She can feel her daughter's presence gone from the castle as soon as she leaves with Konnie. She should've known it would happen. After all what do villains do if not steal away princesses?

Very well. She would have to pursue them.

---

Outside the tower, it's very clear something's about to happen as the tower begins to shift, collapsing down, a few cogs and gears fall off, embedding themselves in the dirt on impact.

In the front of the tower an opening emerges. A dark tunnel. Straight through to the heart of the clockwork structure. Eventually the structure finishes shifting, and footsteps can be heard.

Not the heavy footsteps one would imagine coming from a large haunted metal doll, but light, like a person.

Emerging from the entrance into the woods surrounding is a woman. She's a little above average height, wearing a long fancy-looking black dress. She has dark hair and purple eyes, and were you an eleven year old child with only a painting to remember your mother by- you might mistake her for Konnie.

She scans the horizon, face solemn, hands clasped neatly in front of herself.

[teamwinterofficial]

Hello, Rotomblr.

It's been quite some time, hasn't it? July, August, September, and the months continue to pass by, while our organization has been relatively silent.

However, Team Winter has not disbanded. No matter what effort, what time, what sacrifice is needed, we will deliver this world to the Ice Pokémon who have so long been suffering from humanity's selfishness. Our numbers have grown, our science has advanced, our goals are nearly in sight.

Our operations in Hoenn and Unova may have been partial failures, but you may rest assured that will not continue.

Sincerely,

Winter Leader Epoch

[swoobat-anon-delivery]

Good Morning.

I was thinking maybe we should see if we can find any clues about why I'm here?

@fallen-from-the-unknown

Sheena, who is sitting at the table eating breakfast, stretches and suppresses a small groan of non-morning person-ness (totally a real and legit thing). Doing things? Really? But they know he has the right idea. Last night it made sense to get him out of there. Today it makes sense to get answers.

"Yeah that's probably a good idea. Just let me text work to let them know I'm gonna be late if I show at all," Luckily she typically works later than many people tend to. She pulls out her phone to do so but still continues talking. "If you want to go to Chargestone again we definitely need to take supplies. And Repels. So what happened to you yesterday doesn't happen to us today. Ideally"

[prof-lemon]

OOC Edit: Adding a trigger warning to the top here for mentions of Pokemon experimentation, cruelty, and death.

Hello all. I wanted to share some information I received about the specifics of Team Calm's experiments and research.

If you are not familiar with Team Calm, Team Calm is a team focused on creating "ultra domesticated" Pokemon. These Pokemon have a lower prey drive, and are much more docile. Team Calm then gives away these Pokemon, or sells them for a profit. These Pokemon also have health issues, as well as general lethargy from decreased prey drive.

Many people have had concerns about how this was accomplished so quickly. Domestication is a slow process, and Team Calm is able to create UD lines very quickly.

I received information from someone who chooses to remain anonymous. Regretfully, the process by which Team Calm domesticates these Pokemon is one of cruel experimentation.

Team Calm has created a certain compound that is used to speed up the domestication process. This is quickly injected into Pokemon eggs, and fundamentally changes how the Pokemon develops inside the egg.

You may have seen some of the UD Pokemon. As previously stated, they come with health issues and lethargy. These are the ones Team Calm advertises. They are the best case scenario.

The documents I have received show a history of unethical experimentation. The compound they inject into Pokemon eggs is fundamentally incompatible with many species of Pokemon.

I have spent hours digging through documents and reports about the worst case scenarios of these experiments. The ones that do not hatch are lucky.

The ones that do hatch will rarely live long. The results vary greatly. Some have instincts so nonexistent the Pokemon does not even know how to breathe, and ends up suffocating because it never figured out breathing. Some Pokemon are born with jaws so far back their skulls are permanently impacted. Some Pokemon are born with such great fear and prey instinct they die from that fear alone, even if they are physically well.

What Team Calm is showing you are the successes. We should have been asking about the failures.

[pokemoncenter]

When a Zorua is too stressed, it will react to this in its grooming. Some will aggressively over-groom themselves. Some will instead cease grooming themselves entirely. Either way, their fur will tend to become coarse and unevenly-groomed, prone to looking quite messy.

The large 'puff' of hair on a Zorua's forehead is actually a very good signal of their mental health as a result of these habits. A healthy Zorua will groom itself and use its paws to ensure the puff remains standing up. The puff is used to show health and quality to potential mates in the wild, and is also their point of pride.

A Zorua whose 'crest' is damaged will also become depressed. And similarly, one who is depressed will also stop maintaining that. When too stressed, they often become listless, barely moving, unable to do much. In extreme cases, they may even become uninterested in food.

Zorua have strong pack-bonding instincts. When they bond with someone, that bond is extremely difficult to sever, no matter what. Attacks to the people they have bonded with often hurt them more than attacks on themselves. A Zorua who has lost its 'pack' is often desolate and despondent. Sometimes, they will even become totally unresponsive to outside stimuli.

People are often cruel, thinking that Dark-types are inherently evil. They do not understand the love a Zorua holds in its heart towards the people it has bonded with.

... She doesn't want to move, she isn't even taking treats. She just curls up next to me and shakes. I'm afraid I've truly scarred her this time.

(I have been switched to the weaker painkillers, if it was not obvious. It is still somewhat difficult to think, but I am still not in great amounts of pain.)

[humming-pokemon-helpers]

After work today, I feel obligated to share a certain reminder again: for the love of Arceus, do not catch a Pokémon if you are not prepared for it to be unwilling or unable to battle other Pokémon. Or perhaps more accurately to today’s situation: Pokémon are allowed to be non-battling if they so choose.

I find far too many people surprised by this concept just because “they must have been battling in the wild, right?” And yes, most of the time, we do catch Pokémon in wild battles. But sometimes Pokémon battle for self-defense, not to make a new partner, and sometimes we catch Pokémon without battling at all.

“But I’m a trainer!” Yes, and it’s a trainer’s job first and foremost to understand their Pokémon’s needs and wants. Not to force a creature that could be traumatized or worse to fight for prize money. And even if your Pokémon does want to fight, what happens if it gets injured, or grows old? It’s simply impossible to expect a Pokémon to be willing or able to battle from birth to death.

“But I don’t have the time/money to raise non-battling Pokémon!” Okay. Though I would say the same logic here applies here as it would to having a child in that you should be prepared for every eventuality before catching one, and if you couldn’t handle raising it without the extra income it provides, then you can’t handle raising it, period… I know that not everyone is taught that. At the least, if this is a deal-breaker, find a person who is willing and able to raise your Pokémon for you, and make sure to rehome them humanely.

As for what not to do: hitting, yelling, withholding food or water, making your other Pokémon attack your non-battling partner… I’ve seen people come in having done all of these, then asking me to “fix” their Pokémon. It saddens me every time, and often there’s little I can do to get these trainers to come around.

This time, I was lucky—I managed to convince this trainer to leave their non-battling Pokémon with me.

[An image of a Darumaka, curled up and rocking back and forth.]

This little gal doesn’t have a name other than “Darumaka” so far, and she hasn’t stopped rocking like that for a few hours. I’ll have to acclimate her slowly to my other Pokémon, but I’m glad she’s in a better place now at least. (If anybody has tips for keeping a Darumaka, please let me know—for now, I’m going about some fireproofing in my home.)

Just… I wish it didn’t have to come to this point for so many Pokémon.

[team-enigma-official]

I can’t believe that the leader of Team Ligma is Lysanderoth

Dr. Grant is different from Lysander by virtue of the fact that he has not failed.

And will not fail.

Lysander didn't have the vision that Dr. Grant does.

-Emma

[flittle-fanatic]

Fuckin ow

[teamphobia]

Half of my team is down. I am completely out of supplies. Fuck.

...is that Yinny

Oh arc im fucked now

[liminal-station]

A head lies on the cold, metal floor.

The head of a man who claimed to be a god.

Standing above him are the very men he used to trust with his life.

And yet, a millennium later, it has come to this.

Bodies strewn across the court of a false palace.

A blood red sun rises to melt away the ice.

The king is dead. Long live the devil.

[crystal-beast-tamer]

OOC: A quick question for the PKMN IRL community…Do we need super high stakes ALL the time?

As a friend in an RP Server I’m in (the one by averagewatertypetrainer made, though I won’t tag them in this) brought up, things recently have become very much high stakes a lot of the time in PKMN IRL…too much, as it’s to the point of it being hard to get into, and others in the server agreed with that sentiment. With what I’ve been seeing, I do as well. To this I thus ask…does it have to be super high stakes all the time? As these friends of mine have said, the occasional high stakes event is fine, it helps spices things up, but the problem as they’ve said is that it’s gotten too common. Mentally draining and even able to invoke trauma, as they’ve said. In other words, it’s not fun for them as it’s too stressful in various ways, and I can imagine many others we don’t know are similar in that regard despite us not knowing them. Again, I’m not saying no more high stakes, just…not so common.

In addition to that, making high stakes stuff so common has other issues. For one, if it’s too common, you don’t get room to calm down, which can get tiresome in times. Constant action and drama causes it to loose meaning over time, in that sense. Conflict may be the soul of drama and may drive a plot, but it has to be meaningful, which is hard to do when it’s all doom and gloom. It’s not completely bleak yet, thankfully, but the same idea of it being draining enough to make it less meaningful overall applies. Sorry to say…sooner or later, it’ll be too bleak.

Again, I don’t mean to say high stakes stuff has to be done away with, it’s just too much right now. As such, I ask…can it be toned down a bit? Occasional high stakes events of various scales are fine, don’t get me wrong…it’s just that the key word is occasional. It shouldn’t be the focus, so can we please have more light hearted stuff again?

[team-wrath-offical]

Humanity believing it can co-exist with pokemon was its greatest folly.

[myosotis-and-gracidea]

Pelipper mail! Too late you're getting a ghost plate congrats!

I live in fear.

[pokeglitchden]

Two days, or maybe three. I think that's all we have left until whatever this "Team Heartless" is doing comes to pass.

Zee let it slip in a message. I'm not sure how many eyes were supposed to see it that message. Maybe that was the point.

Well, it doesn't matter either way. We'll be prepared before then. The antidote is coming along. The first few trials were not quite potent enough but this time.. this time I think I have it.

Well.. I've got around 72 hours to make sure this cure is going to be effective. No reason to stop working on it now. If this works we can likely stop whatever they're planning on doing in 3 days in their tracks.

I hope it isn't another cataclysm. Can these evil teams cool it with the whole "ending the world" thing?

[tears-eternal]

//alright, while it was a fun event while it lasted, people have been starting to treat it less like an rp event and more like an obligation, so official statement:

for lucifer and ayin, the platefinder event has concluded and fully resolved. all further plate sightings will be considered non-canon for them and any of my other characters who were involved.

please do not @ me further in regards to any plate anons unless it is to speak of them in the past tense. this goes for ic and ooc.

while i obviously can't force you to, i request that you please tag any further parts of this event with #platefinder so i can avoid seeing it.