Nonverbal pokemon trainers with psychic type pokemon that help them communicate.
Blind or visually impaired pokemon trainers with psychic or dog-like pokemon that act as a guide.
d/D/HoH pokemon trainers with psychic type pokemon that translate the sounds around them into the trainer’s mind.
Dissociative pokemon trainers with small fluffy pokemon that make soft repetitive sounds to help ground them.
Autistic pokemon trainers with pokemon of a variety of different textures for stimming purposes or a familiar texture to reset when overstimulated.
Pokemon trainers with memory problems with pokemon that have the pickup ability that help them to not forget their keys or phone anywhere.
Pokemon trainers with violent impulses with fighting type pokemon that enjoy helping their trainers act on those impulses in a safe manner.
Pokemon trainers with mood disorders and/or anxiety with chanseys, blisseys, audinos, togepis, togetics, togekisses, and meganiums to help them feel better when they are feeling down.
Paranoid pokemon trainers with absols so that they can count on being warned before anything bad can happen.
Autistic pokemon trainers with lucarios to help them pick up on social cues by reading others’ auras.
Chronically ill pokemon trainers with pokemon that know sweet scent so that they don’t feel as self conscious when they are unable to shower very often.
Pokemon trainers with insomnia with altarias, poliwhirls, munnas, and musharnas to help them get to sleep at night without forcing them.
Pokemon trainers with hypersomnia or narcolepsy with pokemon that have the ability sweet veil to help them to stay awake during the day.
Pokemon trainers with misophonia with pokemon that have the soundproof ability to protect them from loud noises.
Trauma survivor pokemon trainers with pokemon that know dream eater to stop them from having nightmares.
Autistic pokemon trainers with chatots for echolalia.
Chronically ill pokemon trainers with pokemon that know acupressure or heal bell to ease chronic pain.
Pokemon trainers with heart problems with electric type pokemon that can act as an emergency defibrillator.
Pokemon helping mentally ill, otherwise neurodivergent, and physically disabled pokemon trainers to feel safe and to be able to do things that society says that they cannot do due to their disabilities.
Hey, sorry if this somehow contradicts canon, I’m just being silly here.
Trainers are legally obligated to fill in the hole in their Shedinja’s back after evolution. Pokemon Centers hand Shedinja plugs out for little to no cost in areas where Nincada are common. They’re more expensive in other regions, however. Generally, Shedinja are harmless, but there are a few of them that get a little soul-sucky. So it’s just better to be safe than sorry.
Luvdisc are often given as pets to very young children, because they’re very harmless, docile pokemon. Magikarp were once popular pets, but the threat of evolution was just enough to make it a bad idea for most children. Luvdisc never evolve and generally suck at everything, plus they’re very cute. So they’re sold like goldfish are in our world.
People have been known to huff the fumes Musharna release to get high, as the fumes are essentially hallucinogenic dream inducing smoke. It’s rather harmless, all things considered. Although people have been known to hallucinate for longer than would be considered healthy, and when you stumble into the Pokemon Center high as a kite, you’re most likely going to be mocked remorselessly while you ramble aimlessly.
The Vanilluxe family was actually the origin of ice cream, when people started making cold creamy treats, they modeled them after them, calling them Icy Vanilluxe Cream. Eventually, it was shortened to ice cream, and named the first flavor Vanilla. So in the pokemon world, Vanilla was named after Vanilluxe and not the other way around.
Charmander trainers are recommended to cover their Charmander’s tails to keep them from going out. Most trainers use a specifically sold cover that lets in air and keeps water out. During contests, it’s usually taken off, because the covers aren’t very aesthetically pleasing.
Mr. Mime’s inspired people, and the art of miming was learned by mimicking the Pokemon.
Loudred can be used as speakers if taught to. They can imitate almost any noise, much like a lyrebird.
Loudred owners are required to muzzle their Pokemon when in populated areas. This has not stopped complete asshats from using Loudred to blast party music illegally. This is a big problem in some Hoenn cities. Please stop using Loudred to blast party music, you already have speakers, you fucking assheads.The damage from these Loudred parties are often massive. Not to mention busting hearing aids in a blockwide radius.
"Here's something I've been wondering about. The ability 'Pressure', notably used by several legendary pokemon and some ghost and dark types. How would just the presence of them cause more effort to be used in a move?"
Answering these questions together because let’s tackle abilities!
There’s something very innately difficult about answering questions on game mechanics. It’s hard to say anything scientifically about something that we can’t really define in our world, such as leveling up, PP, or having specific stats and that’s our real obstacle here. Translating what is essentially just mathematics into something physical is really just a matter of headcannons and opinions, but here we go!
Pressure
When a Pokémon with Pressure is targeted by a foe’s move, one additional PP is deducted upon execution.
I guess for this one we need to figure out what PP translates to in a physical sense. It could be exhaustion level, it could be willpower, but I think our biggest clue here is in the Ability’s name: Pressure. I like to imagine facing off against a legendary as a very high-pressure situation. Your poor pokémon really doesn’t want to mess up – the pressure is on. Because of this, it is trying very hard and giving it all its got. As you put it, putting extra effort into every move. Because the last thing it wants is to give a Legendary a free shot.
Air Lock
When a Pokémon with Air Lock is in battle, all effects of weather are negated (though the weather itself does not disappear).
So Rayquaza is one of my favorites, but this one is really hard to try to explain. Especially with this particular description. Air Lock doesn’t make the weather go away, but makes the “effects” of the weather disappear. What does that mean? Do you not feel wet when it’s raining on you?
If we go by something that makes a little more sense, Rayquaza just turns the weather to clear. This just means Rayquaza has the ability to control the weather, or more specifically the atmosphere, and everything is just meteorology from there. If he can manipulate pressure in the atmosphere, he could move or evaporate rain/hail clouds quickly, shield out the harmful parts of the sun with ozone, and so on. Controlling the weather is definitely not easy and totally out of our league but hey, Rayquaza’s basically a god anyways. If anyone can control the atmosphere, it would be him.
Blaze
When a Pokémon with Blaze uses a Fire-type move, the power will increase by 1.5× if the user has less than or equal to ⅓ of its maximum HP remaining.
This one, to me, sounds like an adrenaline rush kind of thing. The pokémon is in trouble, it’s hurt, and it’s going to start giving it everything it possibly can. I talked a little more about the specifics in the Mega Evolution post if you’re interested. Instead of powering up physical strength, their rush powers up their fire moves.
Synchronize
When a Pokémon with Synchronize is burned, paralyzed, or poisoned by another Pokémon, that Pokémon will be inflicted with the same status condition.
This one is really interesting too, but given that it’s exclusively a psychic ability (+umbreon), it’s got to be a mental thing. My idea is that the pokémon isn’t actually, physically burned/paralyzed/poisoned, but the psychic pokémon does some Vulcan mind-meld kind of stuff and so the opposing pokémon legitimately thinks and feels what the psychic pokémon is feeling from the burn/paralyze/poison. And thus takes damage from it. Think of a really dramatic version of the placebo effect.
This post isn’t really science so much as it game mechanic interpretation, but I hope you enjoyed it anyways.
Headcanon: When people get married in the Pokemon world, they have a best man and maid of honour as you’d expect. But the bride(s)/groom(s) also each have a “best Pokemon”, normally their starter or the Pokemon on their team that they’re closest to. It is also traditional for a Pokemon to be the ring bearer, generally something that can actually hold rings, like a Medicham or Alakazam. (If the starter isn’t the “best Pokemon” they’re normally this.) Also, all of the Pokemon the bride(s)/groom(s) train will normally attend the wedding.
Outdoor weddings are popular because just you try fitting a Tropius and a Nidoqueen inside a church.
An Alakazam that knows it’s trainers future husband isn’t a good person so at the wedding when the priest asks if anyone objects it’s cries out and uses Psychic to throw him across the room
no but a blind bride being led down the aisle by a lucario a deaf groom whose mr. mime interprets the proceedings into sign language a plusle and minun bearing the rings a bird trainer’s pokemon making them and their partner flower crowns and flying over to place them on their heads a shy trainer’s loudred booming their “I do” for everyone to hear spinarak spinning beautiful veils for bug type trainers tropius and castform using sunny day to keep away bad weather and then a legendary pokemon trainer like “we don’t need a priest, I’ve got arceus”
"I was wondering, is there any sort of protection for trainer-owned Pokémon? We know the League regulations don't let trainers use potentially dangerous moves if they're not experienced enough to be able to control themselves, but what about things like Pokémon abuse or trainers abandoning their Pokémon? Would there be any repercussions for them?"
I talked about something similar here. The thing is, in a world where Pokemon can be legally taken from their homes and trained to beat each other up for a living, it can be very hard to tell ‘abuse’ from ‘run-of-the-mill training’. But if people can prove that the trainer’s actions are endangering the Pokemon’s health, they can absolutely nab an abusive trainer.
Abandoned Pokemon are a big big BIG deal. Highly trained Pokemon released into the wrong place can singlehandedly destroy entire ecosystems. Trainers are expected to release their Pokemon through official channels—all unwanted Pokemon should be given to Relocation Centers dedicated to finding them appropriate new homes. Every year, when a trainer renews their license, they have to account for all the Pokemon under their name. Any ‘missing’ or abandoned ones can end up costing them huge fines and/or their license.
(Basically, Robin is going to end up in a hairy situation about a year down the line.)
"Are there any laws concerning cruelty to pokemon? Requirement of food, water, healthcare? Are there shelters and sanctuaries for abused/abandoned/injured (wild or domestic) pokes?"
In Alterity, it’s uuusually illegal to deliberately kill a Pokemon. It’s also illegal to deny your own Pokemon basic health care—if you can’t keep ‘em healthy, you can’t keep ‘em at all. But how do you define ‘basic health care’ for 500+ species? Experts can’t even agree on basic human health care needs. So the laws are vague and the authorities really only go after people whose Pokemon are wandering around with obvious untreated gashes and such. Add this to the fact that Pokemon have no legal rights of their own, plus the fact that most people assume Pokemon are too powerful and intelligent to put up with real abuse, and you end up with quite a few scary possibilities.
The biggest, strictest group of safety laws are the League battle regulations. They’re designed to keep Pokemon battles reasonably safe and humane by limiting the attacks, items, and powers allowed in battle. If the trainer disobeys League rules, they can be smacked with full legal responsibility for any battle damage/death and can have their Pokemon or license confiscated.
Confiscated Pokemon get taken to Relocation Centers, which are kind of like Pokemon Centers except focused on rehabilitation and adoption. They’re cared for and given to new trainers or released into the wild.
In Alterity ‘verse, Pokémon ‘types’ are just a bunch of made-up, extremely overgeneralized labels that the League invented to try and roughly categorize the huge number of Pokémon and attacks out there. So there’s no way to ‘discover’ a fairy type, because ‘types’ are created by committee. (Apparently a really weird and nonsensical committee, but whatever.)
If a bunch of trainers developed new Pokemon techniques that were for some reason really effective against physical fighters, dark types, and dragons, the League might invent a new ‘type’ and class those moves under it so everyone could use them in League battle. Same thing if they started encountering species who tended to be particularly weak to Poison and Steel moves and resistant to fire—there’s no way to explain that with existing types, so they’d create a new one so things made more sense.
(And of course they’d call it ‘fairy’ because aren’t those type matchups EXACTLY what comes to mind when you think of fairies? Hello, most nonsensical type ever.)
"Are there any laws concerning cruelty to pokemon? Requirement of food, water, healthcare? Are there shelters and sanctuaries for abused/abandoned/injured (wild or domestic) pokes?"
In Alterity, it’s uuusually illegal to deliberately kill a Pokemon. It’s also illegal to deny your own Pokemon basic health care—if you can’t keep ‘em healthy, you can’t keep ‘em at all. But how do you define ‘basic health care’ for 500+ species? Experts can’t even agree on basic human health care needs. So the laws are vague and the authorities really only go after people whose Pokemon are wandering around with obvious untreated gashes and such. Add this to the fact that Pokemon have no legal rights of their own, plus the fact that most people assume Pokemon are too powerful and intelligent to put up with real abuse, and you end up with quite a few scary possibilities.
The biggest, strictest group of safety laws are the League battle regulations. They’re designed to keep Pokemon battles reasonably safe and humane by limiting the attacks, items, and powers allowed in battle. If the trainer disobeys League rules, they can be smacked with full legal responsibility for any battle damage/death and can have their Pokemon or license confiscated.
Confiscated Pokemon get taken to Relocation Centers, which are kind of like Pokemon Centers except focused on rehabilitation and adoption. They’re cared for and given to new trainers or released into the wild.
In Alterity, TMs and HMs are move licenses. “This Pokemon is now allowed to use this move in-battle.” That’s it. No magical rays of light, no rewriting of DNA. The license disc contains the League’s official move specs and some basic instructional material, but it’s up to the trainer and the Pokemon to physically master the move, same as any other battle technique. It can take minutes, or days, or years. Some Pokemon never manage to learn the more arcane ones.
Just because the species is supposedly able to learn a technique doesn’t mean every individual can actually do so, just like not every human can learn advanced physics or bench press 500 lbs. Several of the ‘allowed’ TMs make no sense at all for certain species and are pretty much impossible to learn. On the opposite end, there are a lot of cool things Pokemon can do that they are not actually allowed to use in an official League battle, because the technique doesn’t fall within the limits of an ‘official’ move.
(HMs have an additional function in that their out-of-battle use is strictly regulated and pretty much the cornerstone of the economy, but that’s a post for another day.)
So in Alterity, one quirk in the system is that unconscious Pokémon can’t be recalled. The Pokéball will act like the Pokémon isn’t in range. This can obviously be a huge freaking problem when bodies start piling up during League battles, or when they might die without recall, so to combat this problem, League refs have Psychic Pokémon who possess a Heal-Bell-like psychic move.
The move releases a shock of psychic energy that jolts the recipient into consciousness at least long enough for a trainer to recall them. It’s an incredibly potent move; if it can’t wake up a Pokémon, that probably means the Pokémon will never wake up again anyway.
A Revive, basically, is that same psychic energy, sealed inside a crystalline lattice. To use it, the trainer simply shatters the crystal, which releases the psychic burst and wakes anyone nearby. Revives allow trainers to recall badly injured Pokémon while out in the field, and although they’re expensive, they’re considered essential equipment for any trainer.
(A common prank is to set these things off in hotels/Pokémon Centers at night. Seriously frowned upon but seriously funny.)
In the Alterity comic, the Pokemon League puts regulations on which moves Pokemon are allowed to use at which levels to try and make battling more safe and balanced. If you use a move before you’re the right level to do so (for example, a level 8 Poochyena using Bite), it’s considered an ‘illegal move’. Today I had someone once again asking why ‘Bite’ was considered an ‘illegal move’ for Lassie, so here are some cool statistics to illustrate the reason:
American Bulldogs, one of the hardest-biting dogs, have a bite force of around 300 pounds per square inch. (American Pitbulls only have about 235 PSI of bite force, and humans have a paltry 120 PSI.)
By contrast, hyenas, which Poochyena/Mightyena are modeled after, can have a bite force of 1,100 PSI! That’s stronger than a lion or a tiger bite and can break a human femur clean in half.
Lassie was more than a year old and almost fully grown for a Poochyena. Even if we were to give him only half the bite force of the animal he’s modeled after, he still would bite harder than any dog OR wolf and could easily break bones or cause severe internal injuries if he wanted to (or if he couldn’t control himself.) Thus, the restriction for Poochyena who are just getting started in fighting.
Basically, the ‘illegal move’ rule is in place to try and keep Pokemon from gruesomely injuring or killing each other quite as much. As the comic shows, it’s definitely not a perfect system, but it’s the best they have!
What if they had a pet store in the pokemon world, like the arcade in the earlier games? That’s where you can get your first pokemon, if you don’t get one from a professor. Or, if there’s a pokemon only available in another region or far from your house, you could buy one without needing to trade items or other pokemon.
Sodas, juice and water are often flavored with berries such as Pecha and Sitrus berries. That’s why soda and lemonade can heal pokemon.
Aprijuice is popular as a sports/fitness drink. It tastes different from berry juice, a bit more like soy milk. Because apriblenders can be portable, it is very accessible to trainers.
Some berry trees themselves are flavorful, and teas are often made from the leaves. Sometimes the leaves of willing grass pokemon are used. Bitter roots and powders also make bitter tea.
Very expensive, or hard to find, Shuckle berry juice is prized among health nuts for being as organic as can be. In Johto, Shuckle farms keep the tradition alive, and elsewhere some shuckle trainers try their hand at gathering it.
Moomoo milk is a staple for many people. Miltank produce much more milk than normal cows, so even small farms can supply towns. Skiddo and Gogoat are also used in some places.
Alcohol does exist, although it is not nearly as widely used; you wont find liquor stores easily. The first alcohol was made by mimicking how Shuckle ferment berries.
Coffee is fairly popular, often topped with moomoo milk or skiddo milk. One popular place to get coffee is Starboks
You might want to strap in your seat belts, because today we are going to tackle the anonymously-requested Giratina, and the theory of the Multiverse.
Giratina resides in the distortion world, which is said to be an alternate dimension or universe opposite the pokémon world.
There’s a popular physical theory, supported by mathematics but not yet experimentally proven, called the Multiverse Theory. This theory states that there are an infinite number of universes where infinite things happen. For example, according to this theory, there could be a universe where World War II never happened, a universe where you wore a different shirt today, or as Stephen Hawking recently stated, “It would not be beyond the realms of possibility that somewhere outside of our own universe lies another different universe. And in that universe, Zayn is still in One Direction.”
More importantly, one of these universes could be the distortion world.
Let’s talk about some of the possibilities for the multiverse theory:
First of all, we (think) we live in a 3-dimensional universe. Length, width, and height make up three dimensions that we can measure in. But what if there were more dimensions? While nearly impossible to imagine, you can try. Think of a 3-dimensional cube, for example. Every cross section of that cube is a two-dimensional square. Every cross section of the square is a one-dimensional line. Extending this to higher dimensions, every cross-section of a 4-dimensional universe would be a three dimensional one.
Another model of the multiverse deals with Quantum Mechanics. While being one of the scarier branches of physics, quantum mechanics tells us that anything that can happen, will happen. Or, maybe more accurately, anything that can happen does happen. A side effect of this is multiple universes. In our universe, if you eat a sandwich, there are an infinite number of universes where you had a pizza instead, or a hamburger, and even a universe where the sandwich ate you.
Similarly, we know our universe is expanding. From this, physicist have extrapolated that there may be many pockets of space that are independently expanding, creating multiple “bubble” universes.
Another model says that if space is truly infinite, then it must start repeating itself at some point, since there are a limited number of ways to rearrange particles. Each of these repetitions, while practically infinitely apart, would be a parallel universe.
There are many other models out there, but you get the point:
The universe is made of multiple independent universes. The distortion world is a parallel unvierse to our own.
While Dialga and Palkia correlate to time and space in pokémon lore, Giratina is the guardian of antimatter.
Antimatter was mathematically predicted as early as the 1880s, but wasn’t experimentally confirmed until 1955. Antimatter, whether you know it or not, is created all the time in large particle colliders, in cosmic rays, in lightning strikes, or even, literally, out of nowhere.
Antimatter is identically to the matter we see in our universe, but has a completely opposite charge. Antiprotons have the same mass and size as protons but are negatively charged, antielectrons (also known as positrons) have the same mass and properties as electrons, but are positively charged. Same goes for every particle we know of.
The exciting stuff happens when matter and antimatter meet. If a positron collides with an electron, both of them are completely annihilated in the collision.
Einstein said it better than I ever could: “On the big Bang theory: For every one billion particles of antimatter there were one billion and one particles of matter. And when the mutual annihilation was complete, one billionth remained - and that’s our present universe"
Our world is made of our matter because there was just slightly more matter than antimatter in our universe. The distortion world is the opposite case. The distortion world is made of antimatter.
The “violence” that Giratina was banished for likely wasn’t intentional at all. Instead, the antimatter that Giratina is made of simply annihilated with all of the matter in our universe. Instead of causing destruction, Giratina was banished to a world that is made of the same stuff that he is.
Giratina and the distortion world are made of antimatter. In our world, Giratina was annihilating our matter simply by being near it, so he was banished to a universe made of antimatter.
Coincidentally, this also explains why you’d be able to walk on the walls and ceilings of the distortion world. Since the matter in your body is oppositely charged as antimatter, they naturally attract. This simple electric force would easily overpower gravity, allowing you to walk on walls.
This doesn’t explain how you don’t instantly die in the distortion world, though. Oh well.
