The Stakes Tags

A tagging system designed to make it easier to find posts geared toward one’s preferred level of danger, drama, and violence, and to avoid ones that aren’t!

Stakes tags examples provided with some example content warnings.

#Casual stakes - For day to day life where the most alarming thing that happens is a character may spill their matcha latte on their new shirt!

#Drama stakes - For when there’s Drama but no immediate danger. Maybe there’s a shouting match, a friendship falls out, or at worst someone gets slapped during a public incident. 

#Medium stakes - There may be some risk or danger. Maybe a pokemon gets stolen Team Rocket style, maybe someone scrapes a knee or gets roughed up, and a trip to the Pokemon Center to get patched up is needed. For adventures mostly on par with the Pokemon anime in terms of danger and violence. 

#High stakes - Characters and/or pokemon could be badly hurt or killed. Bones might be broken, limbs and lives could be lost, emotional turmoil or trauma may occur. 

#Ultra high stakes - Apocalyptic themes or mass death levels of destruction may occur. Cities, countries, or worlds may be devastated or ended.

Stuck between tags? It’s generally better to round up! And be sure to pair stakes tags with any applicable content warnings!

Stakes tags should be used in combination with applicable content warnings! For example, a post about N confronting Ghetsis in a fistfight would be tagged #high stakes and #cw violence. This will make it easy for people who like high stakes violencing Ghetsis to find it, and people who don’t to avoid it. You could even add a #fistfight tag to specify the type of violence.

Rotomblr-Specific Content Warnings

This list is not exhaustive, and you’re encouraged to use specific content warnings in addition to these as applicable. For example, #cw pokemon abuse might want to be accompanied by #cw medical malpractice.

#cw pokemon abuse - Humans abusing pokemon or intentionally putting them into harmful situations.

#cw pokemon consumption - Pokemon being used or talked about as food items such as the slowpoke tail curry in Sword and Shield, or headcanons about eating pokemon.

#cw pokemon death - When a pokemon dies or is killed, or death of a pokemon is discussed.

#cw pokemon predation - Pokemon hunting other pokemon the way animals do in the real world. For example, a swellow snatching and flying off with a wurmple for dinner, a sableye eating a carbink’s gem body, or a dewgong hunting wishwashi.

#cw pokemon theft - Humans stealing pokemon from their trainers, from their habitats, homes, etc.

Rotomblr Dictionary

Common Rotomblr terms, tropes, and ask memes.

Chosen - Basically a legendary/mythical pokemon’s favorite human. A chosen is a character who has received favor from a powerful pokemon (the Patron pokemon) and often has gifts or powers bestowed upon them by their patron. How this is represented varies based on the player writing it. 

For example, a cresselia chosen might have the power to see into other people’s dreams. The patron cresselia may follow them around as a party pokemon, or it may be off doing its own thing.

Eeby/Pokemorph - A pokemon character that used to be a human and is now, for whatever reason of your choosing, a pokemon. Think of that time Bill accidentally turned himself into a clefairy, or the pokedex entries about pokemon that come from reborn deceased humans like phantump.

There is a lot of overlap between these and Sapient Pokemon.

The term “eeby deeby” isn’t as popular as it used to be, but some players still opt to use it. And some players just call them “former humans,” or class them under “sapient pokemon” for simplicity.

(Emoji/Name) Anon - Sometimes people play anon characters that may or may not have their own blogs but sign off each ask they send with a certain emoji, combination of emojis, or a name.

Sometimes they have a theme and ask the same or similar questions each time, sometimes they’re full characters who just don’t have blogs, and sometimes they exist for planned plot/lore purposes.

Faller - A term first introduced in Pokemon Sun/Moon defined as a person who has passed through an Ultra Wormhole. On Rotomblr, this often means a character from outside of Pokemon media who falls into the Pokemon world. 

For example, if someone plays a Sailor Moon who “fell” from her world into the Pokemon world via a wormhole and is now living in Kanto, that’s a faller.

Fusions - Characters that were not born with features from another species but were combined with something else later in life. Usually refers to physically fusing one entity with another, not just mixing DNA from a donor. Scientific malpractice, special tech, magic, and glitches are popular methods for this.

For example, a character was fused with an eevee. They may have features from the eevee, and may retain some of its habits or memories. The eevee may even still have some of its own thoughts and feelings inside their head.

Glitches - Inspired by old pokemon game glitches and the famous Glitch City from Pokemon Yellow, Red, and Blue, some players use a canon in which the universe is formed from code and thus can experience glitches and exploits. Glitch Cities may be real places that can be accessed in addition to the canon regions and towns, and glitch pokemon may exist in these canons inspired by the glitch pokemon that can be found in the games.

Glitches inspired many classic creepypasta such as Lost Silver, and blogs utilizing glitches as a theme may sometimes delve into horror writing.

Often tagged as #glitch pokemon irl or #glitch pokereality

Hybrids/Pokehumans - Characters that are genetically a mix of more than one species, usually a human and a pokemon, or a pokemon and a different species of pokemon. Usually they were born this way. The how is up to the player. Magic, special tech, and/or scientific malpractice are popular backstories.

For example, an eevee hybrid may have eevee ears and a tail, and maybe some ability to use eevee moves.

Magic Anon - An asker with magical, almost unlimited power to do whatever they’d like to the recipient via their inbox such as turn them into a skitty, shrink them down to pocket size, give them Curse Of Sneezes Every Time Someone Says “Blue”, etc. 

These are meant to be fun and whimsical, NOT harmful, distressing to the player, or disruptive to the blog’s ongoing plot. Recipients will ignore Magic Anons they don’t find enjoyable to play with.

These are prefaced as “M!A” or “Magic Anon!” Check if these are enabled in the blog’s pinned if you would like to send one.

If you receive something you don’t want to apply to your character, you are always allowed to delete it!

MMM - “Muse Mixup Madness.” A popular theme players enact where on the 1st of the month their character gets swapped with an au (Alternate Universe) version of themself for the day. 

These can range from silly (“Ash Ketchum from the universe where his starter was a sassy pyukumuku!”) to very serious (“Ash Ketchum where he survived all of his near death experiences from the movies, but one by one he lost his friends instead”).

Every now and then someone will post MMM prompt lists, but more often players come up with their own prompts, and sometimes swaps are used to drop lore or propel a storyline. 

Traditionally, MMM takes place on the 1st of the month, but due to irl schedule constraints sometimes players will use a different day, or play it for more than one day. 

Tag MMM posts as #muse mixup madness.

Musharna Mail - Similar to pelipper mail, this is a method of sending things to a character. However, musharna mail is for sending dreams instead of physical things. 

The original intent of Musharna Mail was to send one’s own character’s dreams to someone else’s character, like a “peek inside someone else’s dreams and guess who it’s from” game. However, Musharna Mail can just be silly as well! Like sending a dream about an eating contest against a munchlax at a nacho buffet.

Responses to Musharna Mails are often “offscreen” posts of the character waking up post-dream, or ic blog posts of the character going, “Wow I had this crazy dream.”

If you receive something you don’t want to apply to your character, you are always allowed to delete it!

Musharna Malice - Same concept as musharna mail, except instead of sending dreams it’s for sending nightmares meant to antagonize the recipient character. 

Mystery Gift - Similar to Pelipper Mail, except instead of sending via pokemon the delivery is transported via the digitization system that allows the player in the games to store, withdraw, and receive items and pokemon at any PC. 

Some players opt to use this when they feel it’s too unrealistic for other characters to know their character’s current location or address in order to direct a pelipper. Many players even opt to have their characters able to receive Mystery Gifts via an app on their phone.

Some players prefer Mystery Gift because they prefer the idea that to reject a gift the character simply hits “Decline” instead of chasing away a pelipper.

These will be prefaced as “Mystery Gift!”

Pelipper Mail - Inspired by Pokemon Mystery Dungeon in which mail is delivered by pelipper! A character calls for a pelipper (the method is up to each player. Using a phone app to call one similar to Uber is common) and it delivers something to another character. Sometimes it’s played like normal mail by the recipient and the delivery goes to the character’s mailbox, sometimes it’s more particular and it’s delivered to wherever the character currently is, and sometimes it’s played more whimsically and strange things like furniture, other pokemon, or even people are delivered. It will be prefaced as “Pelipper Mail!”

Sometimes characters with other bird or long distance travel capable pokemon will send that pokemon instead, so you’ll see things like “Staravia Mail!” or “Abra Mail!”

If you receive something you don’t want to apply to your character, you are always allowed to delete it!

Pelipper Malice - Similar concept to Pelipper Mail, except the delivery is meant to antagonize the recipient. Sometimes it’s labeled differently as “Pelipper Malice”, but sometimes it’s just “Pelipper Mail” and the upsetting delivery.

Pelipper Unmail - An pelipper is sent to the recipient’s location, but instead of delivering something it steals something. Sometimes it’s used to steal people or pokemon. 

This isn’t as common as the other two pelipper services, but sometimes players coordinate to use it for plots or comedic bits.

One more time! If you receive something you don’t want to apply to your character, you are always allowed to delete it!

Sapient Pokemon - Pokemon that are self aware and possess human levels of intelligence. Usually played as characters in their own right. Think of the pokemon from games like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, or Meowth from the anime!

Self Insert - A character that is inspired by or represents you in the setting. Like the customizable player character in the games, a sona, or a mascot of yourself.

Self Insert Faller (SIF) - A character written as you yourself having fallen from your real life into the Pokemon world setting. Different from a Self Insert in that it’s written as if you have literally entered the Pokemon world from reality similar to an isekai, not just a character based on you who already lives there.

NOTE: SIFs may cause other players discomfort due to the extreme overlap of fiction and reality, so it’s courteous to tag these with #self insert faller and announce the character is a Self Insert Faller in the blog’s pinned intro.

Union Circle - A game feature introduced in Pokemon Scarlet/Violet that allows people to visit each other’s games. On Rotomblr it’s used as a means of transportation between universes when players with characters in different universes want them to visit in person. Player interpretation of how this works for the characters may vary. Some players may choose to stay similar to the game in which a Union Circle is accessed via the Pokemon Center, and for some it’s an app the character can access from their phone.

Some players don’t use Union Circle at all to let their characters traverse universes. It’s just a popular option!

Special Pokemon

Delta Pokemon - From the TCG and some third party games like Pokemon Insurgence. Delta pokemon are pokemon with different typing than their canon designs. For example, canon bulbasaur is grass type, but a delta fire bulbasaur would be fire type. 

Legendaries - In the games, these are powerful, plot-relevant pokemon, typically the header pokemon on the box art or title screen. 

Mythicals - In the games, these are more exclusive pokemon only attainable through special events or time offers.

Most Rotomblr players don’t treat legendaries vs mythicals differently, just grouping all of them under “legendary.” However, for some players’ lore there’s an applicable difference between legendaries and mythicals.

In-Universe Brands

Popularly accepted renames for real brands in the Pokemon world! These are just some of the popular ones, and players are always welcome to come up with and use others!

Rotomblr - Tumblr

Gliscord - Discord

McDonphans - McDonalds

Taco Bellsprout - Taco Bell

Igglygram or Instacham - Instagram

Mewtube - Youtube

Togetwitch - Twitch 

Sawsbucks or Staryubucks - Starbucks

There are no rules about brand names. If one blog’s preferred name clashes with another’s, for example one uses Sawsbucks and another uses Staryubucks, that’s fine! Sometimes players opt to have their characters dismiss it as “Wow, that’s weird. Anyway,” but sometimes they’ll play with it and do something more like “Wow, I wonder if that’s a rival store” or “We must be in different universes /silly.”

Did we miss anything? Share it in the replies below!