Why is life. Like, what was the point.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW HARD IT IS TO ?????

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Alright, so here’s a scenario I came up with while contemplating this ship, please bear with me as I rattle off this stream of consciousness:

Liko and Amethio have just started their relationship and everything is going great, with Amethio in particular going above and beyond to be as supportive and attentive of Liko and her dream as he can be.

In fact, he’s kind of neglecting himself and what he wants in this relationship, not that he’d ever complain. So long as Liko is happy and safe, he’s fine.

Since Liko is new to the whole concept of “dating” and she’s just so happy (and flustered) to be with Amethio, she doesn’t really pick up on it at first.

It starts out small, him doing her chores around the Brave Olivine so that she has more downtime, but it slowly but surely starts escalating into him doing more and more on her behalf.

Liko takes notice and questions him about it, but Amethio simply says he’s doing it all so she doesn’t have to and Liko can’t help but feel her heart swell. It seems to her Amethio’s love language is acts of service.

Things continue on like that for a while, the two continuing on their adventures and growing as trainers together. The two are undeniably still happy together, but Liko can’t help but notice how insistent Amethio is getting about letting him battle on her behalf. If she’s being honest, it’s giving her an uneasy feeling in the back of her head.

Things come to a head on one particular excursion when they end up in a fierce battle against a powerful Pokémon.

Amethio and his Ceruledge are giving it their all as they, Liko, and Floragato battle the foe before them. But something is wrong, they aren’t battling alongside one another, they’re undoubtedly out of sink and individually battling the wild Pokémon.

It comes down to the wire and Ceruledge ends up going down. Just as it’s about to be dealt a vicious blow, Floragato swings in and manages to not only save Ceruledge, but also drive away the wild Pokémon.

Liko’s celebrations are cut short when she notices that her boyfriend seems lost in thought and is caught off guard when he curtly says he’s fine.

Amethio is not fine.

He was the one that had a lifetime of battle experience. He was supposed to be the one to defeat that Pokémon. He was supposed to be the one protecting her.

So why is it she ended up being the one to come to his defense?

And then it hits him: she’s surpassed him and she no longer has a reason to return his love.

This thought hits Amethio like a Dynamic Punch and his composure threatens to crumble before he manages to collect himself.

Starting then and there, Amethio promises to become stronger and prove that he’s still worthy of Liko’s affection.

Liko notices almost immediately the shift in his demeanor. How he’s focusing more on training his Pokémon and pushing himself harder than ever. She can feel their relationship is straining and she’s afraid it’s something she did.

Amethio remains resistant every time she or anyone else presses him, simply stating that he’s fine and only trying to get stronger, but it just keeps getting more and more difficult for he and his Pokémon to cover their growing exhaustion.

Things eventually reach a breaking point when he finally collapses on the deck while having a practice battle with Friede.

When he eventually comes to in the infirmary, who else but Liko is there waiting to finally get answers out of him.

He dodges her prying time and again, but when she goes and starts crying while blaming herself for his recent behavior Amethio finally snaps and comes clean.

He tells her how he just isn’t enough. How he isn’t who she needs him to be. How he has to prove his worth to her before she realizes she’s better off without him and leaves him behind.

Liko pauses, the bigger picture snapping into place, and she starts bawling her eyes out and apologizing that she didn’t see it sooner as she hugs her boyfriend.

Amethio is left dumbfounded as he just sits there, but it doesn’t take long for his own realization and emotions to start overtaking him. He hugs her back in kind as tears streak his face.

The two stay there like that for a while, letting their emotions air out, but once they’ve collected themselves, they talk and agree to continue their relationship while in a way starting anew, standing side by side as equals as they continue their journeys together.

They spend the rest of the evening in each other’s embrace before drifting off to sleep that night.

But Pokopia fully does not do that. The world is lonely without humans and lesser for humanity's absence. So much of the game is about how Pokemon miss humans and are struggling to make sense of a world without us, how the ecosystem is just as hurt by our absence as any other species, and how the things we left behind, even in ruins and burned shells, are often beautiful and strange and helpful to the Pokemon who find them.

Pokemon have always been this allegory for the natural world- back to the original idea of the games inspired by children who caught bugs and kept ant farms- and thus the relationship between Pokemon and humans becomes this allegory for the relationship between nature and humans. And Pokopia looks you dead in the eye and says "the world would be poorer without humans, and if we all vanished tomorrow the echoes of who we are and the things we did would still ring out for eons uncountable. We would be missed and mourned and searched for and the wound of our absence would be deeply felt on this earth for the rest of its turning. The actions of a few greedy short sighted humans will never change that."

my husband: someone should write a spicy fic about the two database engineers locked in the server room trying to fix it

They see a time skip of any length and go

He waved his hand to the other side of the arena. “And on the other side, the mysterious Tobias! This enigmatic trainer has never shown any Pokémon other than his Darkrai – but he’s never been up against a Frontier Brain before!”

“I’m not actually a Frontier Brain,” Ash objected. “I just got told I could be one whenever I wanted.”

“My mistake!” the announcer conceded, immediately. “All right – will both competitors send out their first Pokémon!”

“Pika kachuu, Pikapi?” Pikachu asked.

Ash shrugged. “Nah, I know who I’d like to send out!” he replied. “It only seems fair.”

“Chuu,” Pikachu conceded, as Tobias sent out his infamous Darkrai, and Ash responded with his own Pokémon.

Cynthia spat out her drink.

hyacine redesign!

phainon and cipher siblingism but like, adopted siblings!! anyone catch my drift??

basically phainon and cyrene are siblings (and human)!! a bunch of farmers on the coast of Aedes elysiae

they have a magical forest full of magical creatures behind their house or something which somehow got burnt to the ground while cyrene was playing in there

so basically their parents (and phainon) go to find cyrene but only phainon gets saved by reaver before he gets cooked

reaver cant stay in his big form for long so he passes baby phainon to aglaea for her to take care of him while khas tries to find cyrene

months later khas does come back with cyrene (but its actually another faerie friend that they used to play with who now takes the form of cyrene because theyre so distraught about her death)

now faerie cyrene and phainon live together in a new and rebuilt house but she's really over protective of him