We Are All Pokemon Trainers Discussion

Oh, to clarify on something: A lot of the discussion that led to this D!Post being made happened in DMs as a result of a mediation, not in the spectra modchat itself. I think you were right that the conversation earlier in the D!Thread ended in a sour note but it did end up getting handled elsewhere. The last mod communication as Tagg was working on this post was "hey, where would be a good spot to put this" and the general thought was in the D!Thread. That said, that is a good idea to keep in mind for the future, that communication was specifically stated around the start of April even if as a result of the people involved in the mediation (rather than on a mod end) we decided the best way to broach the topic to the RP as a whole was Tagg making this post. Your being in the dark on the fact That this was being handled, though, is a good thing to keep in mind.

EDIT: Cool cool, yeah that seems good to discuss potentially.

Edited by CorvusAtrox on Apr 20th 2023 at 11:16:10 AM

I'll echo Bitty here, re. how these things are handled. To Tagg: Thank you for the apology, for clarifying the situation and clearing up these communication issues. I'd also like to apologise for my own response, both initially and up until now - my initial response was a kneejerk, but I have no such excuse for freaking out in chat when the sensible thing to do would've been to wait till my emotions settled, then try to open dialogue in a more measured and productive way. I do want to continue with the Bela storyline, but the darkest points of it should now be past, and I'll make sure to respect those triggers in the future.

Crow: Good to know. In general, I'm very much in favor of Knowing What's Going On, especially if I ended up provoking the situation and making it worse than it needed to be; I promise that if there's an indication that the other people involved are looking for a positive outcome rather than just retaliation (which, admittedly, should absolutely be the norm, it's just not always so simple in the heat of the moment), I'm willing to cool down and take things more civilly the moment someone says "hey, I don't like this either, but that was a bit much".

Anyway, as mentioned before, I've got a couple plans that push the envelope a bit in terms of bleakness. First, most pertinently — I am planning for Bren to end up dying. Currently he's unambiguously a villain, but I'm hoping to explore a Redemption Equals Death scenario where he turns against a major School character and takes them down along with himself. This, of course, requires another major (unsympathetic) character death at the same time, so that's something to discuss in further detail.

The second, more immediately impending plan — my plan for the results of the Nitro Mo two-front attack, is for Mo to succeed in jailbreaking Kai's mind, using one of the beads of Chi-Yu. Kai wouldn't become a completely self-unaware thrall necessarily, and might be aware that Mo did something, but it's hidden too well to properly remove without particular help, and at some moment of tension down the road, Kai fights someone or someones on the team, no-holds-barred.

I do have a plan to avoid it turning out too bleak and traumatic, though. A couple weeks back, Nix suggested to Kai her "uuuuugh that suuuuuucked" method, deliberately exaggerating her complaining for the sake of levity. That was actually set up specifically for this, so that Kai could come out on the other side without being too shaken (and to generally lighten the narrative tone).

On a related note, directly to Tagg, this whole situation is also the prime reason why I went back on wanting the School attacks to be fully simultaneous — the above couldn't happen until the thing with Neo was finished, and the thing with Neo was only able to be finished when all three of the writers involved had the spoons to do so. Being personally unable to do anything to accelerate it or explain to you fully why it was on hold, followed by your reaction when it finally did finish, was a good part of why my patience was thin and why I reacted so harshly. Again, an explanation is not an excuse, and I apologize for that in particular again, but it's got me wondering about how we should handle major twists like this as writers, even beyond the subject matter you referred to.

Edited by BittersweetNSour on Apr 21st 2023 at 3:34:21 PM

If we're going to telegraph major deaths, I do wanna mention that of my currently relevant characters I DO want to kill off Victor Eventually and he will most likely stay dead. He's not meant to be sympathetic in the slightest and he will stay that way, and so this is PROBABLY not part of Tagg's Problem, but I wanted to be transparent just in case.

@Bitty, Herbert re: apologies: Okay.

Edited by rmctagg09 on Apr 22nd 2023 at 4:34:59 AM

COLOR CHARGE!

Introducing...

Name: Minna Yumehara

Age: 21

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Straight

Ethnicity: White, Hoennian

Region of origin: Hoenn, specifically Petalburg City

Appearance:

Hasslemon handle: None as of yet, as she does not have Hasslemon due to not being a Pokemon, but when she does get it, it will be perpetuallyCautious (PC).

Biography: Minna Yumehara was born in Petalburg City in the Hoenn region, on Valentine's Day of 2002. The day would end up being somewhat prophetic for her for two big reasons. The first was that Minna would indeed grow up to be a loving and kindhearted girl, emblematic of her birthdate, and the second was that two years later in February a little series called Futari wa Pretty Cure debuted. Of course, Minna was only 2 years old at the time, so she never truly understood any of what was on that screen back then. However, what she didn't anticipate at 2 years old was that the show in question would end up becoming her favorite of all time. The other big thing she didn't anticipate at two years old was that her insanely rich, but extremely busy parents got a job that required them to go on business trips nearly every month for years. As a result, young Minna grew up not really getting to spend that much time with her parents. Luckily for her, however, her parents, despite their busyness, were inherently good parents, and to ensure that she wouldn't miss out on childhood, had her be raised by her maternal grandparents while they were away.

Unfortunately for them, however, Minna's maternal grandparents died, so Minna's parents had no choice but to leave her with her paternal grandparents... who were, to put it very lightly, extremely strict and very overprotective of young Minna. The moment they got her, they trained the two-year-old Minna to speak, giving her diction lessons every day– in both English and Japanese– that poor Minna didn't truly seem to understand. They did their best to teach Minna right from wrong (albiet it was their standards of right and wrong), and wanted her to realize just how badly other people had it due to Minna growing up with insanely rich parents. However, the actual ways that her grandparents ended up doing this were... misguided, to say the least, and ended up having an effect on young Minna that lasted her whole life. They told their young granddaughter that Pokemon were meant to be pets, rather than tools for battling, and banned her from watching, participating in, or even knowing about Pokemon battles– as Minna would find out later, there would be big consequences for when she did learn about them. They told her that Pokemon needed to be groomed, fed, watered, and taken for walks. They told her that all Trainers that used their Pokemon for battle had no clue how to properly take care of their Pokemon, as all they did was end up hurting them in the process. They told her that moves should only be used for the purposes of helping out around the house and showing off in things such as Contests and Musicals, and were more or less akin to dog tricks. They told her that Pokemon did not enjoy battle, and were only pretending to like it. And young Minna, naturally, believed all of this. It ultimately led her to treating all future mons she received as pets, rather than as people of their own with their own desires. Her grandparents, wanting to set up Minna in the Contest world, gave her practice Pokemon to use, and taught her how to use Pokemon "responsibly".

The other– and very misguided– thing that they did with young Minna was the... rather creative punishments they used. As the years went by, and Minna got older, her grandparents decided it was time to teach Minna discipline. They put cameras in her room to ensure that she wouldn't go anywhere, and that she stayed put practicing for Contests, reading books, and generally doing what they considered "safe" activities. Unfortunately, she found out the hard way what happened if she did something her grandparents disapproved of— which Minna, being 5 years old and very curious, did a lot. Her grandparents generally went by the philosophy of "we might as well make you know how they feel about it," and they went by this philosophy every time Minna did something that they disapproved of. Once, when a young Minna was 5 years old, she accidentally skipped a day of getting a shower, and wore ragged clothing ("ragged" being "a T-shirt and shorts"). Instead of ordering her to change her clothes and get a shower, however, her grandparents, in an effort to teach her about self-care, forced her to go out into the streets.

In public.

Dirty.

In ragged clothing.

While holding a sign reading 夢原ミンナです— めちゃくちゃです (I am Minna Yumehara and I am a mess) on it (and yes, she was learning nanori at 5 years old).

Minna was immediately humiliated, laughed at, and mocked by thousands of people while the glares of her grandparents stared at her with the power of a thousand suns. Later that night she was forced to write 将来はもっと自分の世話をします (I will take better care of myself in the future) 500 times.

And yes, she was writing kanji that complicated at 5 years old.

This did not go over well at all with her actual parents when Minna wrote a letter to them, and her parents promptly told her grandparents where they could shove Minna's sign. By that point, though, it was too late- the humiliation had worked. From that day on Minna made a promise to herself to take as much care of herself as possible, to study as hard as she could, and to inspire others to take better care of themselves as well.

This would pay off big time in the future.

Somewhat fortunately for Minna, as her grandparents taught her more about the world, the humiliating punishments died down a bit– though more extreme punishments were yet to come in the future. Somewhat unfortunately for her, however, her life was just beginning. When she turned 8 years old, her biological parents finally returned from all of their business trips for a bit and took her to their house. They promptly introduced her to Futari wa Pretty Cure, a show which she absolutely loved, and did with her all of the things that her grandparents would never let her do– watch battles (though by that point Minna was so horrified by them that she couldn't watch), play video games, watch television, and the like. They also told her that, when she turned 10, they would send her 6 gift Pokemon and money so she could go out and buy her own things. Minna, who had been a servant towards her grandparents for years, happily agreed.

Unfortunately, however, everything changed for the worse shortly after Minna's parents returned home. An accident occurred while Minna's parents were in the midst of filming— and that accident ended up costing both of her parents their lives, leaving Minna entirely under the care of her grandparents. Minna was extremely distraught about this, but was about to receive a silver lining in the form of her parents'will. Her parents left for her the six mons that they had intended to give Minna when she was 10: a Jolly-natured Joltik with aspirations of seeing the stars and a love of Japanese, a pessimistic, worrisome Lillipup that was greatly at odds with Minna's grandparents by being very fond of the occult, a Chespin that was a bit on the ditzy side and enjoyed eating all of Minna's grandparents' food whenever they made it, a Riolu who was even more at odds with Minna's grandparents and tried to teach Minna about battling (and was in fact one of the only ones that Minna understood thanks to telepathy), an extremely shy Eevee who had the same views on battling that Minna herself did, and an Alolan Vulpix that was a bit of a proper Pokemon and served as an older sister figure for Minna (helped by her own telepathy). Minna was extremely happy about this, and while she didn't give any of the mons names yet, she did take great care of them.

All the while, though, Minna's grandparents had other plans. They began to get more serious about entering their granddaughter in Contests, and taught her many strategies, such as how to make Poffins (if they were burnt or undercooked, they forced Minna to eat them anyways!) and how to impress the judges in battle (they were the judges). They also got more specific with her about what Minna could and couldn't do– don't talk to strangers– especially not Aura Spectrics, as those people were harbingers of doom and servants of Giratina!— remember to dress modestly, get good grades, and perhaps most devastating to Minna– no engaging in anything "mystic" or "violent". Yeah, they'd heard from her parents about her watching PreCure, and they didn’t want her to get any... ideas about using mons irresponsibly. Or about herself being irresponsible.

Additionally, after Minna's parents died, her grandparents began to show their true colors more now that she had Pokemon. They closely monitored her grades in school (after they removed her from the Trainer's School due to her getting involved in battles despite it being part of the curriculum), and if she got any grade below an A, they punished her by forcing her to trade away one of her Pokemon for the week in exchange for one of their practice mons (who often despised Minna). Her grandparents still fed, groomed, and pampered the Pokémon in question, but refused to give it back to Minna until the week was up. As Minna's parents just died and she started getting Bs from her grief, this happened a lot— so often that poor Minna got used to it. They also picked her friends for her, something that Minna didn't really pick up on.

And then Minna finally turned 10 years old— and by that point, she was so good at Contests with her practice Pokemon that her grandparents decided to enter her into one for real. The Joltik was the first mon she entered in her first Contest, and thanks to the training she'd had over 10 years, she won easily. Her grandparents were extremely proud of Minna, and over the course of the next 8 years of her life, Minna would participate in thousands of Contests throughout the Pokemon world. Of course, she still was bound by the "No PreCure" rule, but as Minna got older, she naturally grew a bit more rebellious, and started watching all of the PreCure shows in secret as they aired on TV in the basement of her grandparents' house whenever they weren't home. She began to draw thousands of pictures of PreCures and even created some of her own. As Minna continued winning contests and becoming an ace student in middle and high school, her grandparents continued their insane punishments, albeit to a lesser degree as Minna began to conform more to their expectations of who she should be (save for the secret PC watchings, which continued).

Within the span of the next decade her mons had all gotten names- the Alolan Vulpix, Minami, was first, followed by Eevee- Yayoi- and then the Lillipup– Riko– the Chespin– Ichigo– the Joltik– Hikaru– and finally the Riolu– Asuka. Out of the six of them, Asuka was the one who tolerated Minna's grandparents the least, and who encouraged Minna to move out of their house— but by then Minna had become completely passive towards her grandparents' rules and abusive punishments. She tried to teach all of her mons how to be obedient and good Pokemon, and ended up completely ignoring their own desires in the process. However, she was far more permissive with them than her grandparents were, and often let them watch PC with her. Ultimately, by the time she was 16, Minna had picked a career path for herself. Spurred on by her love of Pokemon, desires for proper care, and her kindhearted nature, and later reinforced at 18 by her having seen [1]– which would eventually become her favorite series– Minna decided to study to become a Pokemon Doctor and work for the Pokemon Center. Her grandparents were extremely proud, though unaware of the reasoning behind it, and Minna studied like crazy to get into the best medical college in the entire Pokemon world, which was in Saffron City.

Long story short— she got in.

At 18 years old, Minna's grandparents finally emancipated her... mostly. They still kept a GPS tracker on her phone, and all of their rules and punishments from childhood still applied. She still couldn't speak to anyone on the Auric Spectrum, and her grandparents still chose her friends for her. Minna was extremely happy about the prospect of going to college, though, and strove to make her grandparents proud. However, she soon found out the hard way that the medical school in Saffron she had applied to was grueling and extremely stressful, to the point where she often found herself watching PreCure and practicing for Contests more so than practicing her schoolwork (her grandparents, of course, found out and would punish her for this). 2 years into getting her medical degree, she dropped out, deciding to devote most of her focus to Contests while keeping her medical aspirations in check. Her grandparents were (naturally) not happy about this for the most part, but her Pokemon supported her decision and encouraged her to take her time.

Which she did. As of 2023, Minna Yumehara is a well-loved Contest star in Hoenn, and her Pokemon (especially Hikaru) are beloved by many. Yet despite everything, Minna's upbringing has left her with a ton of flaws— flaws that she will need to overcome if she wants to truly earn her place and be able to bond with her Pokemon.

Character Themes: "The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World (EN); "Please Share! PreCure (MACHIKO Ver.)" (JP)

Minna's Pokemon

Species: Joltik

• Nickname: Hikaru
• Nickname origin: Hoshina Hikaru, the main protagonist of Star★Twinkle Pretty Cure
• Gender: Non-binary
• Ability: Compound Eyes
• Nature: Jolly
• Hasslemon handle: stellarTwincool (ST)
• Personality: Minna Yumehara's starter, best friend, and first Pokemon, Hikaru is the most akin to their eventual namesake out of all of Minna's mons in terms of personality. From the beginning, even prior to Star Twinkle PreCure airing, they have been nearly identical to their namesake in every regard. Hikaru is fun-loving, friendly, energetic, and extremely talkative, with a massive imagination that may or may not even surpass Hoshina Hikaru herself. Their main interests include space (and specifically constellations; they have flat-out made star charts), drawing and writing comic books, and finding out just about everything they can about their Trainer's native language– Japanese. As a matter of fact, they've studied so much Japanese that, while they still aren't as fluent as their Trainer, they are by far and away the most fluent of all the Pokecures, as well as the most knowledgeable about how the language works. That being said, though, they aren't perfect— they are still tripped up, to this day, by the infamous wa/ga divide, and they can sometimes have trouble with sentence structure and particles. In terms of their kanji knowledge, they far surpass everyone else on the team, and are able to recognize around 600 kanji off the bat. Their interests in constellations and comics have also, somewhat unsurprisingly, led them to a love of Homestuck, though not nearly as much as the mons on Axis Hunter's team. They tend to keep a comic book diary detailing all of Minna's adventures, and have a tendency to break the fourth wall, though they don't have the crazy meta-shifting powers that Ananpi does. Beyond their interests and excitable nature, Hikaru is an extremely sweet and caring Pokemon. They are the mon who is most likely to try and encourage Hikaru to break away from the rules set by her grandparents. Unfortunately, though, Minna does not speak Monese... but it’s nothing a little JP can't handle. They are also the biggest fan of Contests among the team members, enjoying them far more than battling and in particular enjoying getting to use their favorite move, Swift. Their favorite PreCure series is Star★Twinkle Pretty Cure.
• Moveset: Absorb, Fury Cutter, Electroweb, String Shot, Thunder Wave, Electro Ball, Double Team, Lunge, Round, Giga Drain, Light Screen, Swift
• Character themes: "Celestial"- Ed Sheeran (EN); "Imagination * Halation" from Star Twinkle Pre Cure (JP)

Species: Lillipup

• Nickname: Riko
• Nickname origin: Izayoi Riko, one of the main protagonists of Mahou Tsukai Pre Cure
• Gender: Male
• Ability: Run Away
• Nature: Careful
• Hasslemon handle: mysticalTerrier (MT)
• Personality: Riko, much like his namesake, is a bit neurotic. While definitely not as much of a nervous wreck as Yayoi is, he is still worrisome and pessimistic, often believing that things will go bad for both him and the rest of the Pokecures. As a result of this, he serves as a bit of a foil to his best friend, the eternally optimistic Hikaru, as well as a foil for Minna herself. Riko is also a bit clumsy, often failing to execute his moves to their full power, and is extremely socially awkward and somewhat shy. He can usually be found reading all sorts of books on his interests: namely, gemstones, the occult and paranormal, and most especially of all, magic (as in witch's magic, not magician's magic). Naturally, these interests of Riko's conflicted with the personalities of Minna's grandparents, who forbade him (er, "her", rather- they thought the books were Minna's) from keeping such books and believed they were dangerous; as a result, Riko isn't too fond of Minna's grandparents and will often bark at them constantly whenever he sees them. Riko is intensely studious despite his shyness, and serves as the resident Smart Guy of the group- he is often seen carrying around a massive book about ghosts and dark magic (that is NOT the Prax Obscura), and one day desires to gain a copy of the actual Prax Obscura (though he hasn't mentioned this to Minna at all). He is also a bit cowardly (though not as much as Yayoi), as proven by his ability Run Away, but given that he knows that it'll turn into Scrappy later down the line, he is extremely grateful for it and very, very excited about the thought of evolving. That being said, Riko himself also has his own unusual ability. Namely, he's been able to see will-o-wisps since birth, something he attributes and theorizes is a result of him being able to gain Scrappy and also due to him being given the TM for Shadow Ball immediately upon getting captured by Minna’s parents. He also has a Ghost-type move as an Egg move: Lick. While far more fluent at Japanese than Ichiko is (for one thing, he's actively familiar with Keigo and uses it constantly), Riko still has a bit of a ways to go in the kanji department. His favorite PreCure series is Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure.
• Moveset: Tackle, Work Up, Bite, Retaliate, Lick, Shadow Ball, Rest, Snore, Snarl, Payback, Crunch, Play Rough, Psychic Fangs
• Character themes: "Overkill"- Men at Work (EN); "Orangea" from Mahou Tsukai PreCure (JP)

Species: Chespin

• Nickname: Ichiko
• Nickname origin: Usami Ichika, the main protagonist of KiraKira PreCure A La Mode
• Gender: Male
• Ability: Overgrow
• Nature: Quirky
• Hasslemon handle: delightfulPâtissier (DP)
• Personality: The goofy, dense, and fun-loving Ichiko is Hikaru's closest friend on the team besides Riko, and serves as Minna's "traditional" starter. Despite being from Kalos and not Minna's home region of Hoenn, Ichiko has gotten quite used to life in the Hoenn region, and very much enjoys participating in Contests. While he isn't a fourth-wall breaker like Axollo and Ananpi (and Hikaru) are, Ichiko is still the silliest Pokemon on the team. He is often seen doing very amusing things, such as jumping around on pogo sticks while juggling, and is extremely clumsy; most of the time his falls result in big laughs from the rest of the team (save for, of course, Asuka). Like his namesake, Ichiko enjoys cooking, and particularly enjoys cooking things from his home region of Kalos. Unfortunately for him, however- and also like his namesake- nothing ever turns out quite right for him if he follows a recipe: he usually ends up overcooking or burning it. However, if he's not following a recipe and is instead making his own crazy creations from scratch, his crazy creations turn out to be surprisingly good. He is a massive fan of cooking shows and particularly enjoys watching the Happy Legendary Day channel on [YouTube], due to the crazy food creations that the show's hosts make. Ichiko is an extremely peppy and fun-loving Pokemon, who is always there to brighten everyone's day. He has an immense love of cute and cuddly Pokemon, and will often be seen cuddling Hikaru. His Japanese skills aren't near the level of complete fluency, but he does know around 200 kanji and some kanji combinations. He will sometimes make up Japanese words on the spot if he doesn't know a certain word. His favorite PreCure series are Delicious Party♡Pretty Cure and especially Kira Kira Pretty Cure A La Mode''.
• Moveset: Growl, Vine Whip, Rollout, Leech Seed, Bite, Belly Drum
• Character themes: "Pollyanna (I BELIEVE IN YOU)" by Catherine Warwick (EN); "Add the Berry to My Big Love" from KiraKira PreCure a la Mode (JP)

Species: Riolu

• Nickname: Asuka
• Nickname origin: Takizawa Asuka, one of the main protagonists of Tropical Rouge PreCure
• Gender: Female
• Ability: Inner Focus
• Nature: Hardy
• Hasslemon handle: tsunamisRadiance (TR)
• Personality: Out of all of the mons on Minna's team, Asuka was the least built for Contests. Given that she is a Riolu, she is the most traditionally battle-focused out of all of the Pokecures, being a martial arts master and a passionate fighter who enjoys going to and training on the beach. Asuka is the team's Only Sane Woman, constantly doing her best to reel in the other members of the team and very often getting frustrated by the others' sillier shenanigans (save for Minami, and even then she's a bit disturbed by the latter's slight Nightmare Fetishist tendencies). She is strong-willed and passionate, never giving up in the heat of battle and not being afraid to express her opinions towards other people and Pokemon. This, naturally, puts her at odds with authority figures that she distrusts, such as Minna's violence-abhorring grandparents. It also puts her a bit at odds with her actual Trainer, although she is able to communicate with her due to her Aura skills. In fact, Asuka is one of only two mons that Minna can understand (Minami is the other), and she often uses her Aura skills to translate the others' Monese. She also is willing to encourage other members of her team, notably Yayoi, to use their skills for battle, despite the fact that none of them are really willing to do so (Yayoi in particular). Despite her outwardly aloof nature, though, Asuka, much like her namesake, is intensely loyal and is willing to do just about anything for her friends— including fight for them. She also has a secret love of both the original Futari wa and especially Tropical Rouge PreCure, which is where she got her namesake. She is among the more fluent members of the team in terms of their JP skills— but she doesn't really prefer to speak the language. Her favorite PreCure series are Futari wa Pretty Cure and especially Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure.
• Moveset: Endure, Metal Claw, Counter, Work Up, Force Palm, Rock Smash, Rain Dance
• Character themes: "Atlas Falls" by Shinedown (EN); "BREAK POINT" from Tropical Rouge PreCure (JP)

Species: Eevee

• Nickname: Yayoi
• Nickname origin: Kise Yayoi, one of the main protagonists of Smile! PreCure
• Gender: Female
• Ability: Run Away
• Nature: Timid
• Hasslemon handle: sensitiveMiracle (SM)
• Personality: If one were to look up the word "timidity" in the dictionary, they would find a picture of Yayoi under it. Poor Yayoi is nothing if not a complete scaredy cat... dog... fox-thingy, and is about as shy and sensitive as her Trainer is— if not more so. While she does desire to be braver among all else, she mainly prefers to use her moves for Contests. If she ever goes out into battle, her usual reaction is to do exactly as stated by her ability and run away. She has a lot of trouble connecting with the rest of the mons on Minna's team as a result, most especially with Asuka, who tries to send her out into battle and get her to use her moves despite her being against it. As a result of her nature, Yayoi can also be a bit indecisive regarding certain things. She still hasn't decided which of the three original Eeveelutions she wants to evolve into yet (she is the only mon that was actually caught in Hoenn), or even if she wants to evolve into any other Eeveelution. She has a bit of a hard time sticking to her guns, and has a tendency to go back on certain things after thinking about any potential negative consequences (even if the original decision was initially a good idea). However, despite her natural timidity, there are two things that Yayoi is extremely good at: Contests (naturally) and writing. In fact, she's so good at writing that she finds herself to be better at expressing her feelings if she writes them down. However, despite her fondness for writing, and ironically given her region of origin, Yayoi is by far and away the least Japanese-fluent of all the Pokecures, knowing only a few basic phrases, all of the hiragana, all of the katakana, and only a few kanji. This further impedes her ability to communicate with the Japanese-fluent Minna. Similarly to her namesake, Yayoi is also a massive fan of superheroes and fairy tales, and looks up to MIRACLE superheroes in particular as examples of the type of Pokemon that she wants to be. Her favorite PreCure series is Smile Pretty Cure!.
• Moveset: Helping Hand, Sand Attack, Quick Attack, Baby-Doll Eyes, Copycat, Charm
• Character themes: "This is Me"- Keala Settle (EN); "100% Hero" from Smile! PreCure (JP)

Species: Alolan Vulpix

• Nickname: Minami
• Nickname origin: Kaido Minami, one of the main protagonists of Go! Princess PreCure
• Gender: Female
• Ability: Snow Warning
• Nature: Modest
• Hasslemon handle: gelidPrimrose (GP)
• Personality: Minami, much like her namesake and as her nature suggests, is extremely modest, wise, and kindhearted, serving as the epitome of grace and beauty among Minna's main team of six. Due to her Fairy typing and ability to use Psychic moves, she is able to speak to her Trainer via telepathy, and as such is the only other member of the team besides Asuka that Minna is able to understand. She serves as a bit of a sisterly figure to Minna and to the rest of the team, and along with Asuka is one of the Pokecures' saner members. While she is genuinely a kindhearted figure, she can be somewhat stern with the rest of the team and especially with Minna herself, which has the somewhat unfortunate side effect of reminding Minna a bit of her grandparents. Also akin to her namesake, Minami has a love of fairy tales, Disney movies, and princesses, but also has a bit of a Nightmare Fetishist side, as she enjoys reading and learning about the more... horrifying origins of certain fairy tales. Minami usually prefers to stay out of the spotlight as much as possible, but does enjoy showing off her Fairy and Ice-type moves in Contests. Despite being the same species as Kamui (albiet Alolan rather than Kantonian), she'd barely be able to hold a conversation with her if the two of them met, as Minami is actually among the least Japanese-fluent of the Pokecures (but not the least fluent; Yayoi has that honor). Her favorite PreCure series is Go! Princess Pretty Cure.
• Moveset: Powder Snow, Tail Whip, Disable, Icy Wind, Ice Shard, Confuse Ray, Aurora Beam, Extrasensory, Ice Beam, Hypnosis, Moonblast
• Character themes: "The Light"- Disturbed (EN); "Heart Pearl" from Go! Princess PreCure

Hey, all! I've been out for a while, and wanted to kind of get myself involved again. Sorry for my long absence.

Name Atrin

Age: 19

Gender: Male

Ethnicity: Caucasian

Hometown: Nimbasa City, Unova

Bio: Atrin is a young trainer who grew up in Unova. As a child, he always had a fascination for Pokemon, battles, and the bonds between trainers and their partners. Aware of the young man's interest in all this, a local scientist who was friends with the family gifted Atrin a recently hatched Solosis. Naming the Solosis Mimir, Atrin set off, having caught a few Pokemon since and is always working on improving his skills in battle.

Pokemon:

Species: Duosion

Nickname: Mimir

Gender: Male

Ability: Overcoat

Personality: Atrin's starter and best friend, Mimir is often as quiet as his trainer, but regularly thinking about everything in the room. Fiercely loyal, he would do anything for Atrin.

Species: Mudsdale

Nickname: Fleurir

Gender: Female

Ability: Stamina

Personality: Fleurir has a powerful personality, and often takes charge, even more than Mimir would.

Species: Vikavolt

Nickname: Hekili

Gender: Male

Ability: Levitate

Personality: Hekili is a fast Pokemon who seems to run on a thousand thoughts a minute.

Species: Appleton

Nickname: Orchard

Gender: Female

Ability: Thick Fat

Personality: Orchard is sweet, but can be ditzy at times. Despite this, she's extremely protective of her trainer.

Edited by etran12 on May 4th 2023 at 1:56:26 AM

So I'm making this D!Post to make it official, cover concerns, take suggestions to improve, and just generally keep everyone up to date.

I've been planning for the past few months to start making my characters weirder, why? I'm unsure it just hit me and I thought it'd be fun. So to kick this all off, this relates to my School Counterattack plans, Gabriel, everyone's favorite synaptic hacking Templar has been working on various weapons of mass destruction with Umbra's scientist, Victor.

Gabriel has now perfected a weapon that attacks the body and the nervous-system, a rather dramatic weapon. The plan here is for my character Roxy to get hit with it, and need sort of a physiological "overhaul" to prevent her from dying. I'm hoping to portray the drama of this with good taste, as the plan does involve her getting back up and going after Gabriel for doing so in the first place.

Current needs are a character with extensive genetics and biology knowledge to complete the augmentation, though I am also biased to my own plans and would like to get suggestions on changes made to keep the tone consistent. If anybody has any suggestions I'd love to know!

Intro: The Noble Gasses

A few months ago, Absent floated the idea of a "Delightful Children"-style Schoolchild collective that works as a powerful hive mind. For the counterattack, I decided to finally create the group and introduce them to the RP, as well as work the backstories of the Schoolkids currently in my control (and recently Radon) into the mix. I brought up the idea with Absent and he and I decided to collaborate to create the group.

At A Glance

The Noble Gasses correspond to the Schoolkids with the same designation as the rightmost column in the Periodic Table.

• Helium
• Neon
• Argon
• Krypton
• Xenon
• Radon
• Oganesson

Of these, four—Helium, Neon, Argon, and Xenon—have already been collected. When their brain waves are properly synced, they form a hive mind entity that can effectively use the physical and mental powers of each child in unison. The group's powers are also much stronger together than they are individually. The goal of this experiment was to create a crack team of Templars who can execute coordinated precision attacks, a divergent experiment to the Schoolchildren designed to control swarming cannon fodder armies like [Moscovium] does with Gabriel's experiments.

As the collective grows, so does their power and influence. Once the remaining three have been enthralled, the group has the potential to be one of the most powerful entities the School has ever made. So far, they can only sync up with the other Noble Gas Freshmen. One other plan is to escalate it further: once all 7 are together, they would reach critical mass and be able to subjugate and assimilate any Freshman by keying into their genetic signature (though how this affects Schoolchildren who are Ghost Pokemon or are otherwise disembodied is not yet known).

The problem so far is that until recently, the 4 extant Noble Gas members can't get along enough to actually stay in sync for much longer than a few minutes. Their personalities clash too much, not helped by the fact that two of them have DNA samples drawn from known rivals. To salvage this experiment, Dr. Circhester has asked Mr. Tenor (AnotherMan's character) to get them synced up.

Combatting the Nobles once synced is simple; find a fracture point. This is often a disagreement or bone of contention between any of them that's too hard for at least one of the individual minds to ignore. This will cause them to immediately desync and, if the fracture point is touchy enough, leave them unable to sync until they're resolved. Tenor's music can sync them well enough to prevent this from happening too soon.

Genetic Makeup

All of the Noble Gases have, within their genetic make-up, the genes of various known villainous leaders in both WAAPT Canon and Pokeverse Canon. This has led to the direction of how their personalities developed as many of those traits were genetic. So far:

• Helium has the genes of Maxie, Lawrence III, and several Macrauls
• Argon has the genes of Archie and Adelinde the Scythe
• Xenon is largely a psychically enhanced clone of Cyrus
• Neon is cloned in part from Blake Hall, possibly with mixtures from previous Neons

This means, retroactively, that Oganesson, Krypton, and Radon have canonical villain genes in their genetic matrices as well. Since I was taking over the characters, I did run a few ideas with AnimeBoy to make sure I did his characters justice in the process.

• Krypton has Giovanni's and maybe Sabrina's genes, further hammering his Connor Kent expy-ness
• Radon has Lysandre's genes, for the resulting tomato in the mirror result
• Oganesson has Guzma's and Lusamine's genes

(I understand that WAAPT-canon Sabrina probably isn't villainous but if she is a powerful psychic in her own right as she was in the anime, she'd be guaranteed to have genes of interest to the School.)

Personalities and Appearances

The Raid

The Noble Gasses are being dispatched to recover the remaining members of their batch (Radon, Krypton, and Oganesson) as well as any other Schoolchildren in hiding within the PEFE facility in Jubilife. Confronting them is essentially a boss fight, and while they will still be driven off (probably by sheer force of numbers), they will succeed in enthralling exactly one of the escaped Nobles with them, bringing the number up to five.

We're still working on the kinks on this one.

Edited by MasterJayAM on May 16th 2023 at 9:16:18 PM

Seems cool to me! 👀

I'm fine with it on the face of it but two questions:

1) Once one of our currently free Noble Schoolchildren are enthralled, does the focus shift to rescuing them from the collective or is that going to be the new normal for them for as long as the School remains active?

2) If the collective is complete, is their ability to enthrall their Freshmen absolute, or is it possible to be resisted, even if weakly?

Edited by rmctagg09 on May 16th 2023 at 11:37:22 AM

RE: Nobles

We haven't gotten that far into discussing how the Truant Noble would adapt to being part of the group yet, though its implications are something we're planning to explore. Definitely this will be their new state in the time being (as they'd make a good way to explore the Nobles as individuals as he'll* be interacting with the other Nobles and Mr. Tenor). While I wasn't sure what the aftermath will be, I considered the following factors:

1.) The Nobles once completed and synced are definitely big gun material for the School. By activating their final power, so to speak, the School can effectively seize control of all the truants present in a facility in a single large raid, undoing a lot of J-Team victories in one fell swoop. Thus, the School will not stop until they seized the full set and sync them. Indeed, getting the 4 synced is meant as a test and as a show of force, and it being successful is all the proof the School needs to go full steam ahead.

2.) While powerful, the Nobles are hardly the only superweapon in the School's arsenal. An attempt to neutralize or otherwise thwart the Nobles and retrieve one or more Noble Freshmen will, narrative-wise, a crippling blow to the School even if the School itself remains a major threat.

Given that rescuing a truant and denying resources, I can definitely see a rescue attempt, though how it plays out is dependent on whether we actually want to see the School try to use them and whether the J-Team would even need to a raid to get them, depending on how "loyal" the Noble collective remains.

Which brings us to how much any of the Freshmen can resist the enthrallment. So far, the enthrallment as I imagine it so far is contingent on how well the seven are synced. The stronger the sync bond, the harder it is to resist. But it can be resisted, and how well a Freshman can resist is determined in part by their own willpower and by their power set. I can imagine Tritium, for instance, to resist it quite well because she nullifies the powers of others. How it plays out differs, but on average it can only be resisted with great difficulty.

I also like to think that the signature the Nobles lock onto is a gene, not a soul or brainwave pattern, so reincarnated Freshmen like Hassium and Radium are completely unaffected, while they're also left puppeting only Astatine's physical body.

Important to note that the Nobles are meant to be the School's Glass Cannon, powerful enough to be worth deploying but with a fatal weakness that they must work hard to cover. The reason why they haven't been deployed sooner is because their individual components don't especially enjoy cooperating. If nothing else, there is a possibility that the J-Team can use to break the enthrallment.

(*The truant Noble-line Schoolkids all identify as male.)

Edited by MasterJayAM on May 18th 2023 at 8:01:54 PM

Hi! Just thought I'd let you guys know that I finally finished a new chapter of PMD: Reflecting Balance!

Can be read on Serebii forums, FF.net or AO3.

DS: Nice! Still need to catch up on a lot of things but it's on my list to read

Though, also, I've got a question: I'm considering introducing a character who has a Paradox Pokeform, specifically Scream Tail. I don't plan on showing it off until we decide what we're doing with Area Zero but I wanna put it out there that "Scream Tail Pokeform" is something I'm interested in doing.

I feel like we need a lot more information, not only on the canon nature of Paradox Pokemon, but also on this character you're thinking of applying it to as well. My knee-jerk reaction is "absolutely not", but we've had acceptable explanations for weirder.

Edited by BittersweetNSour on Jun 4th 2023 at 4:55:53 AM

Oh while refining the character with JG, I found a mon that works better than Scream Tail for what I want, so I withdraw my request. Since I don't have the guy's Pokemon fully decided on yet, I'm gonna wait until I do that to post anything. Though he might appear before that anyway.

EDIT: Basically what I was planning on was "character who makes being a Vampire-like monster from Filipino Mythology their Aesthetic turns into a weremon so they shapeshift into said creature at night." Was originally thinking Scream Tail due to 'vampire Jigglypuff seems to tick all the right boxes and I think I can find a way to justify this', but then realized "Wait, it might not be the default 'cute' option but good old Zubat hits too many boxes of its own here instead"

Edited by CorvusAtrox on Jun 10th 2023 at 1:20:50 PM

Hello, so you may remember me (or not) but I abruptly left in I think October of last year without any notice.

Lately, I've been thinking about rejoining this RP complete with a new OC for a fresh start (especially since I complete my final exam for the term tomorrow) as a fun side hobby while I work on a manuscript. That's right, I'm writing a book!

Anyway, I'm probably going to need some refreshers on certain things on the WAAPT wiki. But it's okay if I rejoin with a new OC, right?

Oh yeah that's totally fine, we've had people do what you do before. And in fact, there's someone who rejoined with a new character just a month and a half ago!

Okay, let's do this one more time...

Introducing Poppy!

Name: Poppy Campbell

Age: 13

Gender: Female

Ethnicity: White

Appearance: Brown hair that goes down to the shoulders, blue eyes, typically seen wearing a t-shirt with jeans.

Any ties to an organization?: Unless you count her dad's ranch, no.

Region of origin: Fortree City, Hoenn region

Backstory: Once Poppy sets her mind onto something, she does not stop. She's willing to fulfill her goals no matter what (good thing she's not a criminal), and she's a bit clever too. The problem is not only is she nervous of the outside world, she doesn't know what she wants to do. Poppy spent her life growing up in Fortree City in the Hoenn region, staying home with her mother. As for her father, he ran a ranch located on the outskirts of town, and stayed there one weekend every fortnight. And she didn't see her brother as much since he became a Pokemon Ranger. One day when her 12th birthday was coming up, however, when her dad asked her what she'd like to become, Poppy did not know what to answer with. Was she going to become stronger via challenging the Gyms? Or follow in her brother's footsteps and become a Pokemon Ranger? And that's not even to mention the Pokemon Contests they had in the region as well as some other regions. She just didn't know. On her 12th birthday, however, she received a gift from her brother, which seemed to be a small box with a letter. The letter said that one day, while on a mission, he ended up discovering a Pokeball that had a Pokemon inside but didn't seem to belong to a trainer, and he decided that he'd give it to her as a birthday gift. She opened the Pokeball and out came a Cyclizar, as he became her partner Pokemon, and she gave him a name: Donut. A year later, on her 13th birthday, she got to accompany her brother on one of his missions to see what being a Ranger is like up close. The mission went smoothly as all she did was follow her brother and stay behind him to be safe, but now she still hadn't decided whether she was going to become a Trainer, a Coordinator, or a Ranger. So her parents decided on something - they teamed up, went out and bought Pokeballs, a purse, and other equipment she would need on a journey (camping equipment, Cyclizar riding equipment etc) and the next day, told her she was going on a journey, to her shock! They made her promise she'd find a goal and see it through, and she eventually hesitantly agreed - after 2 weeks of persuasion. So now all she had was Donut, and equipment for her upcoming journey: a journey to find a destination.

Poppy's Pokemon

So far, all she has is her starter

Species: Cyclizar

Nickname: Donut

Gender: Male

Ability: Shed Skin

Personality: Relaxed and cautious, Donut prefers things to go the way he plans, and gets flustered when they don't. Though he is Poppy's form of transportation, he is capable in battle. He is jealous of when he sees other Dragon-types like Salamence represented on billboards and such, feeling that less vicious-looking Dragon-types like him are never appreciated. He is also wary of what he considers 'outsiders' such as wild Pokemon, and especially doesn't like whenever someone who isn't Poppy tries to get on his back.

Important Announcement

It's that time of the year again, that is, this year's Mon Census for January 2022 to November 2023, which can be filled out here.

For a detailed list of the rules, please check out this section of the FAQ on the WAAPT Wiki.

Edited by rmctagg09 on Nov 13th 2023 at 6:03:42 AM

I had an idea for the Pokemon Egg Atrin has, but wanted to make sure it didn't contradict with anything in WAAPT lore.

My idea is that the shady doctor who's friends with Atrin (Who has no idea about his shadiness) and gave him the egg is using him as part of an experiment. The experiment is to see if he can alter a Pokemon's form while it's in the egg. My thinking is that the Pokemon egg was bred with two Unovan Samurott, but Holloway injected something into the parents so that their child would eventually become a Hisuian Samurott. If it contradicts anything, I can go with my original idea for the egg being a Mudkip, but wanted to make sure it was okay.

I don't think it necessarily contradicts anything — the same Dewott can evolve into either Unovan or Hisuian Samurott depending entirely on environment, so it's reasonable to assume that Shady Science(TM) made it so that its body is guaranteed to respond as if it evolved in a less human-influenced environment, or something.

RE: Eggy

Seconding Bitty. This does make sense and it opens up another potential avenue on where we could get Hisuian mons. It can also open up a lot of plots when Atrin remembers that this particular variant has been extirpated/has been seldom seen for more than a century now and that's gonna raise alarm bells for him.

Edited by MasterJayAM on Nov 14th 2023 at 5:50:52 PM

In that case, I think I'll go with it! I should probably explain my idea for Doctor Holloway as well. He's a medical doctor who found himself with a really nasty disease he doesn't have anything for. While he keeps it to himself, he works a lot on a cure, often taking work from less than good organizations and groups to fund his projects. He's an old friend and classmate of Atrin's parents, and that's how they know each other. I'm thinking the reason he gave Atrin the egg is to see if it'll evolve the way he wants as part of his experiment in DNA Alteration or something as a possible way to cure himself.