usedlaserbeam | Entries tagged with mad pokemon breeding science

The third Sunday in June — that makes this Father's Day, doesn't it? It's interesting that there hasn't been nearly as much discussion of this particular holiday as there was of Mother's Day last month, which was lauded as "a breeder's favorite holiday" on the regional news broadcasts, if I'm not mistaken. I suppose that's only to be expected, though, in a world where we're all designated a new supposed mother upon our arrival; we aren't nearly so well-represented when it comes to fathers.

I suppose that's for the better in some ways, certainly.

I also suppose there's a certain irony in the fact that I escaped our "breeder's favorite holiday" relatively unscathed, but now a month later, I've found myself saddled yet again with a brood of eggs. Perhaps that's not so unheard of, though — it does take two, or so I'm told. If you'd be interested in adopting one, please contact me; I'd be more than happy to pass it along to a good home.

More and more, I find myself wondering if these creatures don't have far more of an appreciation for irony than we frequently give them credit for.

ATT: EggList.doc

In the interest of expediency, I intend to make this advertisement a concise one. Please forgive the brevity; I've merely learned through considerable experience that in situations like this, a simple solution is generally the best.

I've found myself once again in possession of a fair number of eggs. I'll be attaching a list of their types at the end of this post; please consider adopting one, as I would highly prefer to find good homes for them, and regrettably haven't the capacity to keep them myself.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter.

ATT: EggList.doc

[Oh, look. It's a Yagyuu, wiling away a rainy afternoon in the comfortable security of the Tennis Haus's library. Given the flashes of tiny paws and bits of fur that keep flickering around the video, it's likely this recording is the product of one of his many Eevees; however, he seems a bit preoccupied with his own thoughts at the moment, lounging in the window seat with a peacefully sleeping Espeon in his lap and watching the rain come down.

Here and there, other flashes of Eeveelutions go by; for anyone careful enough to take a headcount (an affair made slightly easier by the fact that most of them wearing collars of varying colors), there'll be fifteen in all — two of every variety of Eeveelution, with the sixteenth being the one drowsing the afternoon away in his arms.

After awhile, though, he leans over and retrieves the Gear from where it's gone skittering across the floor, regarding the red recording light almost blandly — it switched on, how unsurprising — before beginning to speak.]

I'm afraid I'm somewhat late to the topic of Starter Appreciation Day — it was a few weeks ago now, as I recall — so recounting any such fond memories about mine would be fairly moot at this point, I should think. However, it does pose an interesting line of inquiry, doesn't it? I've seen plenty of speculation over time about the meaning of the starters we're given, why they're the types they are, why they were chosen for us. I've seen some that have fit their trainer...remarkably aptly. And others that haven't.

[He pauses, giving his Espeon a gentle pet, and she purrs a little louder.]

I wonder if that's truly something to be contented with — the thought of being handed one's perfect match. One would think, in the grand scheme of things, it might be all the more rewarding to discover them on one's own.

[Another pause; some paws skitter in the background. And then at last, he seems to come back to his usual, more businesslike self.]

Ah, but speaking of matches, that brings me to a second question I've been considering lately. For those of us who have been designated as Breeders here, our charge is to attempt to produce the best or highest quality Pokemon possible, isn't it? I've become curious lately how people have chosen to define quality that way. Is it from a large moveset? A powerful one? An unorthodox one? And has anyone considered the more mundane practice of tracking bloodlines instead?

[He flashes the camera toward his Eeveelutions, most of whom are happily playing about the room in a technicolor whirlwind of fur and fuzzy feet.]

Speaking as someone with Pokemon whose lineage I can trace back four generations, I suppose you could say it's something of a pet interest of mine.

Having seen several mentions of the upcoming holiday season already, I suppose this is as prudent a time as any to raise awareness of Souji-kun's Breeding Centre and Foster Home for Pokemon — both fine places for anyone looking to acquire a new Pokemon. Though he's regrettably no longer among us, his legacy lives on in the form of these two institutions, and the very capable Saber-san has graciously taken up the charge of overseeing them in his absence. I myself can vouch for the reputability of the organizations, and likewise would personally recommend them to any trainers interested in augmenting their rosters or finding gifts for a friend or acquaintance.

Of the two, I'd particularly emphasize the existence of the Foster Home. There are many benefits to raising a Pokemon from hatching, of course, but there's likewise something undeniably rewarding about being the person to provide a good home for a stray in need. ~~No matter what that stray might be.~~

That said, speaking of finding good homes for Pokemon needing one, it seems I have some eggs of my own to contend with. Anyone interested in acquiring one, please inquire within; I'll attach the list of types available to this post.

[OOC: And here is the IC post for this batch of eggs! There are still some left, so feel free to cruise on over and snag one!]

[For the first time in quite a while, the video that's posted to the network from Yagyuu's Gear isn't an accidental one; nope, on the contrary, it seems he's chronicling what appears to be an Impromptu Cuddling Day in the Tennis Haus. With the weather drizzling outside, the majority of his roster have taken to either the Haus or the backyard barn for shelter from the weather, and brief glimpses of a lot of them are visible as Yagyuu takes his tour of the house.

In one room, a Cubone and a Slowpoke are leaning on each other, dozing peacefully near a curled-up Absol and Persian; in another, two Zoruas and two Vulpixes have formed a furry foxpile in the middle of the floor, with a snoozing Mienshao occupying a goodly portion of the couch.

Cutting through the kitchen brings the video to a shot of the backyard, where it seems not all of Yagyuu's Pokemon have sought out shelter from the rain — on the contrary, the backyard is a hot mess of tentacles and noodle dragons, with an Octillery snuggling happily against a very contented Dragonair, a hovering Carnivine standing sentry over a carefully-tended garden, and a giant mass of pink, tan, and blue that is probably two Milotics wrapped around each other.]

I'm almost beginning to wonder if Karkat-kun doesn't have the right idea after all, breeding his Pokemon every so often simply for the sake of getting it out of their systems.

[He muses, keeping his voice down so as not to disturb any of the napping critters. The guy owns eleven Eevees, do you have any comprehension of how rare an occasion it is that everyone appears to be napping?]

That said, I'd prefer not to wind up with a crop of eggs without already having an adoptive home set out in advance, so I suppose this also constitutes an offer to anyone interested in a new egg — please feel free to contact me, and perhaps we can work out some sort of mutually beneficial arrangement. ...Ah, Lady, you're up. What —

[And on that fairly cryptic note, he switches the feed off and proceeds to follow his insistent Espeon upstairs, where he'll find a few select members of the Eevee Battalion have already gotten a head start on that plan. Whoops.]

[OOC: Gratuitous Pokemon post to help facilitate some of the shenanigans discussed on the Wishlist Meme! Also, if you want Yagyuu to breed something for you, this post is open and fair game; feel free to hit me up on the meme or any other form of contact if you've got a request! o/]

[Greetings from the interior of Mt. Moon, Johto! It's dark. There's no one around ~~and your phone is dead~~, or at least not on camera, save for the occasional flicker of blue noodly movement at the edges of the screen and two fluffy-looking lumps on the ground — a small but reasonable distance apart — that are probably bedrolls.

Oh, wait, there's something else of interest in this scene.

Considering there's about TWENTY EGGS piled up on top of those bedrolls.

(And a rather satisfied-looking Charizard hovering around in the background.)

There's movement from the one on the left, the shuffling squirming motion of someone groggily coming back to consciousness, and then abruptly Yagyuu sits up, coming perilously close to sending some of those eggs rolling away in the process. He looks down — ]

Lady!

[No, wait. These aren't Eevee eggs. Oh, thank Federer these aren't Eevee eggs.

He looks over at the other bedroll — ]

Nero-kun...

[And with a squeak of Air! from the Dragonair currently commanding the Gear, the feed ends.]

~
[ Some time thereafter, a text appears, accompanied by a snapshot of the eggs: ]

It appears we have some eggs to get rid of.

Please.

[OOC: Aaaaand here's the IC egg post! (The OOC roundup is over here, still with a few Charmander eggs left for anyone interested in them!) Expect responses from both Yagyuu and Nero as they work to foist these eggs off on people!]

[The clatter of plastic against hardwood is the first indication that this recording is probably not intentional; the second is the fact that for the initial few seconds, there's no discernible speech, but rather just a cacophony of clicking nails, scampering feet, rapid footsteps, and the occasional frustrated grunt. Then at last, amidst the noise, a few sentence fragments become audible as they drift past the microphone.]

No, no, get down from th—

[Noise.]

Phantom, grab Napo—no, wait, that's Archime—the yellow collar, Phantom, grab it—

[Noise.]

Leonidas, don't eat that—

[Noise.]

Loki, I'm going to need that leg back sooner or—did you just sneeze on—?

[Noise. More noise. Some shuffling this time. And then, at last:]

There. One, two, three, four, five, si—wait, where's Mithras, he was just—

[Footsteps, shuffling, and then a moment later, a klaxon begins to sound.]

Ah, there you are. Well done, Arsène, and I appreciate having you on the lookout, though you needn't sound the alarm quite that vigorously next time. Lady, Aya, are the others still all present and accounted for?

[More assorted noises, shuffling, and the unmistakable squeaking of a mass of Eevees fill the air, and shortly thereafter the familiar purple jelly of a Ditto squishes over the microphone, and the broadcast ends—followed a little while later by a text.]

~
Is anyone currently in the business of producing mass quantities of Sleep Powder — specifically, enough to put six Eevees to sleep for approximately eight hours at a stretch? If so, please respond to this message; I'd like to make an arrangement with you.

[No video for you today, Johto, but there is some shuffling of feet, rustling of papers, and otherwise standard white-noise sounds of occupancy heralding you as this post first begins. There's also a light pitter-patter of padded paws across the carpet and, if one listens very closely, the faint trill of a particularly smug, self-important Espeon. That doesn't last for long, though, because soon enough there's a soft thump, and shortly thereafter Yagyuu's voice comes in—]

Lady, this is the third time—

[Another pleased trill.]

What's gotten into you lately? You've been underfoot for days, you've chased Masako, you bit Hirochii, I know you've been harassing Sudoku when you think I'm not watching—what? What is it. What are you trying to—

[Footsteps. A pause. A pause that drags on into awkward, disbelieving eternity.]

...You really felt it necessary to make your point six times over?

[There is a pleased trill from the world's smuggest Espeon, and the audio fades out; later, a text appears on the network.]

~
At the risk of attributing far too much credit to these Pokemon of ours, has anyone happened to notice them occasionally displaying motives that appear to be almost unsettlingly human in nature?

When posed the question, "which contributes more to personality — nature or nurture?", a psychologist once replied, "which contributes more to the area of a rectangle — its length or its width?" The simplistic answer, therefore, is that neither one contributes more to a creature's personality; rather, that it's some interdependent combination of the two that produces the end result.

I think it's an interesting debate to consider, particularly in the context of our current mandate to 'catch them all' and 'be the very best' here in Johto. We're encouraged to capture Pokemon from their native habitats and train them to battle as proxies on our behalf, and in the course of that training and battling, they become stronger for it. We're also given a standard by which to measure that strength — a leveling system of sorts. I wonder, then, if anyone has ever tested to see if the claim holds up in practice? Take a Pokemon at a given level, having reached that level through training under a master; how does it compare to a similar Pokemon that reached that level of strength on its own in the wild?

The profession of breeder, likewise, raises its own questions. We know that, through deliberate manipulation of parentage, a bred Pokemon can be hatched knowing any number of a wide array of attacks, garnered from the influence of its parents. But regardless of egg moves, are there some Pokemon that are simply born stronger than others? The theory of natural selection would suggest that some must be, and that the ones predisposed to advantage would therefore be better equipped to survive than the ones that lacked those natural advantages. But on the other hand, that may be expecting a bit too much logic from a world where a horse, perpetually on fire, only burns when ordered to.

They're social creatures, Pokemon — sometimes surprisingly so. They seem to have some comprehension of the 'team' unit we enforce upon them, despite it being one entirely and arbitrarily of human making. The lion might lie down with the lamb — or the Luxray might lie down with the Mareep, as the case may be — solely by virtue of the fact that predator and prey share a trainer in common. One member of a roster might emerge as the 'mother' of the group, while another takes on an authoritative role, while others form partnerships within the context of the unit. It's a...surprisingly human showing of behavior, coming from creatures we're supposed to capture and store in balls on our belts.

A rather wise philosopher recently posed the question to the network: "Do you think that if you try hard enough at something, then eventually you'll succeed at it? Or are there some things that can't be achieved through just hard work?" Which brings the debate full-circle, I think. Are we, ultimately, products of our nature? Our environment? Some combination of both?

And what does it mean for what we're doing here, that at times our Pokemon seem to be just as human as we are?

[It's late afternoon on the outskirts of Goldenrod City, where Yagyuu has evidently been out training his team; it's a somewhat unusual sight to see them all out of their Pokeballs at once, but at the moment the full roster has been released to roam around the open expanse of field chosen for today's practice grounds.

Or at least, most of the full roster is: there's an Absol staked out relatively near his trainer, seemingly on high alert as he surveys the other Pokemon in his midst. Farther back from the camera, a Rapidash is roaming with a stately air as a very small Vulpix trots along beside him, bounding four steps for every one of his own. And even Yagyuu's Ditto seems to be present— if the occasional glimpse of purple molecular goo seeping over the edges of the camera lens is any indication.

Yagyuu himself is visible, too; he's crouching down to administer his Eevee's usual meticulous grooming— an activity she clearly seems to enjoy, given the way her tail is flicking with pleasure at the attention— and speaking quietly to her while he's at it.]

Now that Vampa's evolved, that only leaves you to go, doesn't it?

[And she coos, pushing her head against his hand insistently.]

You're certainly growing strong enough for it. And the necessary stones aren't particularly difficult to come by, either; a quick trip to the department store will easily take care of that. So it's just a matter of deciding which type suits you best, isn't it?

[He glances over, surveying his team as they roam and remarking almost absently:]

An electric type, perhaps, might—

[But he never gets the chance to finish the sentence, as the Eevee lets out one last emphatic trill before taking one step back and beginning to glow with bright, almost blinding light—

— and when it clears, there's an Espeon in her place, just as perfectly well-groomed and somehow managing to look twice as haughty for it.

Yagyuu, for his part, just stares for a few seconds before shaking his head in what is probably half amusement and half disbelief.]

...Ah.

[And he keeps staring, up until a Pidgeot comes flapping down from overhead a few minutes later, drawing his attention up and away from the Espeon and toward this latest arrival.]

Irene, another excellent job, but I see we'll have to work at perfecting your aim—

[And on that fairly cryptic note, purple goo oozes completely over the lens, and the Gear switches off.]

[Well, Johto, in a slight change of pace, this video is not coming to you today courtesy of PhantomCam™; in truth, it's actually sort of more like Lady's-Paw-Landed-On-The-Record-ButtonCam™, and the accidental nature of the recording shows. The vast majority of the shot shows a tilted, haphazard view of a bedroom (a very neat bedroom, an observant viewer might note), and only a small sliver actually manages to catch Yagyuu, who appears to have set his backpack down on the bed and is methodically extracting the contents.

(Every so often, this view ends up marred by what seems to be a tuft of tawny brown fur, or the occasional pink tail feather.)

Yagyuu, however, seems reasonably oblivious to being recorded, his attention fixed on the series of items he's removing from his backpack, one by one: a notebook and pen, a novel with a slightly dog-eared cover, a roll of grip tape, a tennis racket that he places aside with the utmost of care. With an Eevee and what eventually reveals itself as a Pidgeotto bustling around on the bed, he's clearly not taking any chances that it might get damaged.

This patient, deliberate ritual of unpacking goes on in silence for a minute or two, Yagyuu still apparently ignorant to the fact that he's on candid camera, when at last something shifts: he reaches into the bag and his expression abruptly turns to one of surprise and mild disgust. And when he yanks his hand back out of it, a sticky mass of purple goop (which is now partially encasing his hand) comes with it.

Eyes narrowed, he gives his hand a rather adamant shake, but the goo doesn't dislodge; on the contrary, it spreads a little wider and smiles at him.

A harder shake. It remains unfazed.

And then at last, with a long-suffering sigh, Yagyuu turns away from the camera and stalks out of sight, footsteps firm against the carpet as he apparently makes his way toward the room's door.]

Niou-kun...

[The door closes (it's not quite a slam, but it is perhaps a little more firm than was really necessary) and the Pokemon on the bed begin to shuffle around, and somewhere in the commotion another paw hits the Gear and the feed ends.]

[Greetings, Johto! This video is coming to you from some secluded part of the streets of Violet City, courtesy of PhantomCam™, and features one Yagyuu Hiroshi sitting comfortably on a bench beneath the shade of a tree, engrossed in a book with his backpack resting securely at his feet. Perhaps most notably, he's not wearing his yellow-and-black Regulars jersey today, which is largely because it's currently piled next to him on the bench in something vaguely approximating a nest, with what can only be a Pokemon egg resting safely inside.

Yagyuu, for his part, is mostly oblivious to the fact that he's currently on candid cam, but the reason for it quickly becomes apparent—the egg in its nest is beginning to rock gently from side to side, making vaguely egg-like noises, and gradually beginning to glow.

(Fortunately, Phantom is wise enough to the workings of Pokemon hatchings that he's taken the initative to record this for posterity, regardless of whether or not his trainer is as quick on the uptake about it.)

Another few moments pass, and now at last Yagyuu takes notice, setting his book aside and turning his full attention to watch as the egg wobbles, brightens, cracks—]

Vee! Eevee!
[—and yields a bouncing newborn Eevee, still snug and secure in the jersey-nest, taking her first look at the world.

Book completely forgotten now, Yagyuu carefully extends a hand to his newest Pokemon, letting her inspect him a minute; after a few courtesy sniffs and nudges, the Eevee hops out of her nest and climbs up into Yagyuu's lap instead, settling in to ensure his full attention as she carefully inspects the human who's going to be her trainer. A minute later, Yagyuu's hands come to rest on her back, stroking through her fur as he conducts an appraisal of his own. This is, after all, his first attempt at breeding a Pokemon, and he's clearly intent on thoroughly examining just how well it turned out.]

Ah, aren't you a friendly one. Yes, it's a pleasure to meet you, too.

[And as Yagyuu continues to fuss over his new Eevee, Phantom apparently decides that his work here is done, and switches the feed off.]

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Yagyuu Hiroshi

June 2020

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032 | Goldenrod City | Text;
030 | Goldenrod City | Text;
029 | Goldenrod City | Video;
028 | Goldenrod City | Text;
026 | Goldenrod City | Video;
023 | Mt. Moon | Video / Text;
016 | Goldenrod City | Audio → Text;
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007 | Outskirts of Goldenrod City | Video / Action;
004 | Goldenrod City | Video / Action;
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