AUTHOR'S NOTES/DISCUSSION

This is just a li'l something I wanted to throw together; a place to consolidate and archive my own ramblings/ideas, or things from other authors/commenters that I think are neat, for the purpose of providing an easy point of reference or inspiration for other writers or myself. With regards to this story, of course. I will be updating it from time to time.

This is NOT a necessary chapter to read if you want to write a chapter or a story, and it's purely optional to include anything from this chapter in your own stories/chapters. The only actual guidelines you need to follow are the ones presented in the introduction chapter.

Additionally, if you have any general questions about the story that you'd rather not PM me about, or just wanna talk about the story, feel free to use the comments section here as a discussion center! I will occasionally use it to ask questions to the readers about the general future of the story.

And again, one last time: the interpretations of how shit would work that you will find in this chapter are not definitive answers! They're just my own solutions, and ones you COULD use if you were stumped on what you want to do. Each story is in its own universe; things are bound to work different!

Re-use of characters/settings, and shared settings: I am absolutely, completely fine with the re-use of characters and settings, or even the general set-up which starts a story. I'm also fine with the use of pre-established specific universes, used in other stories/chapters. Even better if you want to collab with another author. Go ham.

Poké Balls: I think the different varieties of Poké Balls found in Pokémon games should probably still work the exact way they usually do on humans. Love Balls working better on opposite gendered targets, Friend Balls instantly boosting the "friendship" (whatever that means in the context of your story) of whatever you catch in them to high levels, etc. Maybe you'll even have special new balls in your story. Maybe the only balls capable of catching humans ARE special new balls.

What happens to a captured humans Pokémon?: Presumably, a captured human's Pokémon would become subservient to the master of their master.

"Wild Human" Levels: I would assume that the majority of humans would be quite low level. They do have a hard time contending with even weak Pokémon. However, perhaps some humans, like strong martial artists, or gymgoers, or psychics, would be higher level?

Captured Human and leveling: Pokémon are able to undergo physiological changes at a much greater rate than humans naturally; this is what allows evolution, items, and leveling to work. The changes made by ball inadvertently to humans would probably result in an at least somewhat accelerated growth rate, allowing the leveling system to work and captured humans to become capable of possibly superhuman feats.

Humans breaking free of Poké Balls during capture: I think it should be possible, though unlikely. If the targeted human is higher level, maybe they can pull it off?

"Friendship" and "Affection": This is a bit of a tough one, because what the "Friendship" value actually is in the games is never clearly defined. Back in Gold/Silver/Crystal, it was actually called "Obedience", and in Pokémon Yellow it was called the "Tame" value, both of which seriously recontextualize things. Gen 6 also introduced "Affection", the obtaining of which seems much more consistent with what we think of as actual friendship. Things are further complicated by the fact that it is impossible to actually play Pokémon games as a cruel trainer, like a team Rocket member. No matter what you do, your Pokémon's friendship will always increase just by using it, and NPCs will comment on how much of a bond you have with your Pokémon. Therefore, there are a lot of ways authors could interpret "Friendship". They could say it's actually more like obedience, and your human gaining it over time is more akin to them being brainwashed by the Poké Ball's influence, and that "Affection" instead represents an actual bond. Or you could just say that it's straight up actual friendship, and not being kind to your human will prevent it from increasing.

Types and Abilities: In the introductory chapter, one of the big rules I layed out was that humans are either, normal, fighting, dark, ghost, or physic type, or some combination of them. This was because my original vision for the story was much more constrained, and I viewed these as the only reasonable types for humans to have, based on what humans in the Pokémon universe are capable of. For similar reasons, I limited ability choices to "reasonable" things. This is actually one of the rules I'm more ok with breaking, on a story by story basis. If your human gains a special ability or is transformed in a way that would justify a different type or ability, then go for it.

Moves and Transformations: This is a big one. One of the initial constraints that I removed was that baseline captured humans, who have not had their genetics fucked with, were only capable of performing moves that were in some way derived from something humans could actually do. Likewise, the ball could only modify preexisting human traits. For instance, a human could learn tackle, because they can tackle. They could also learn Milk Drink, because the ball would detect that they are biologically capable of lactating. However, this capability is usually only utilized during and after pregnancy, and therefore, in a human who is not a recent mother, the Poke Ball would be to manually activate the gene, modifying the human. A transformation. Likewise, muscles could be strengthened, nails could be thickened, and teeth could be sharpened. I slackened this constraint a great deal to allow for a wider variety of stories and fantasies from authors, though I will still be mostly following it myself. Which leads into the next bit; larger scale transformations.

Larger-scale Transformations: So, you want your captured human to be able to fly, or shoot jets of water. Maybe you want them to be able to discharge electricity from their cheeks. Maybe you're a fan of monster girls, and want to have Pokémon-human hybrids in your story. Well, that's totally fine! And there's a lot of ways to do this. Perhaps the most simple way is to up the transformative ability of Poké Balls and TMs; for instance, attempting to teach your human your flamethrower will the growth of fire-producing organs, or teaching fly will encourage the growth of wings. In turn, these modifications might allow your human to take on a new set of types or abilities. Alternatively, perhaps your human was influenced by non move related factors. Powerful Pokémon, such as legendaries, or Ditto, may have used their powers to alter the form of your human. Or maybe the use of items such as those developed by Colress, like the DNA splicers, were used to fuse your human and a Pokémon, or at least add some Pokémon DNA to your human. Expanding on the idea of fusion, perhaps your human has become amalgamated with a Pokémon after a Poké Ball mistakenly captured both of them at the same time. The possibilities are endless.

Evolution/Form Change, and Dynamax/Z-Moves/Mega-Evolution: I'm not entirely sure how humans would interact with the evolution mechanic, though my assumption would just be that they wouldn't. I did have the brief idea of tying TMs to evolution? Like, humans normally can only learn moves that make sense, but 2 or 3 times they can be exposed to a TM which contains something like Fly, which will trigger an evolution? The resultant new form might have traits of a bird Pokémon. Also, if they possess Pokémon DNA, perhaps they can undergo evolutions or form changes akin to their respective Pokémon? Similarly, while the use of Z-Moves and Dynamax is a no-brainer for humans, Mega Evolution is a bit trickier. I mean, if they got DNA capable of Mega Evolving, they should be able to do it, right? But in the case of a pure human, how would a Mega form even look?

Pokédex and PC: I think I might be alone in thinking this is interesting, but I enjoy thinking about the different ways the dex might interpret data. For my own stories, dexs which were originally intended for Pokémon will record captured humans as being an UNKOWN SPECIES, though they may eventually recognize them as human. Different captured humans will be recorded as different forms of the UNKOWN SPECIES, similar to Pokémon like Oricorio. Data entries will also be sparse, though they may fill in over time, with data specific to each "form" (individual human). However, in a story with a dex that is specifically designed to record info on humans, things might be different. Generally, I recommend using the dex in your story as an interface between you and your Poké Balls, allowing item usage, renaming, etc, due to the fact that the PC will likely be unavailable. I also generally recommend changing the dex from being an advanced and rare piece of tech, as depicted in the early games, to the common item or phone app it has appeared as recently. On the topic of the PC, if you have a world in which capturing humans is totally normal, feel free to allow the use of the PC. That blockade solely exists to prevent an easy out for characters in stories where the capture was accidental.

Pokemon/Human biology, egg-groups, and breeding: The biggest difference between humans and Pokémon that immediately occurs to me is the differences between their methods of reproduction. While Pokémon universally lay eggs, even in cases in which the subject Pokémon is more akin to an animal which in the real world would give live birth, such as mammals (barring echidnas/platypuses), humans give live birth. Additionally, Pokémon eggs seem to be able to gestate and develop at an astoundingly high speed, perhaps through the same means through which Pokémon achieve the rapid cellular changes observed in evolution, though it could just be chalked up to Poké Ball related meddling. Egg groups are weird. Basically, in a complete departure from real life biology, Pokémon are able to breed with any other Pokémon, without issue, and without creating hybrids, so long as they share an egg group. So what defines an egg group? It basically just boils down to body type. Human-like, mineral, field, etc. My head-canon is that all Pokémon are actually genetically compatible with each other, but differences in the physical limitations of the major body-type's reproductive organs prevent breeding. However, humans, as a result of their unique reproductive adaptations and shared ancestry with Pokémon, are capable of breeding with any Pokémon. I'd imagine this, in combination with humans' potential to learn a great deal of moves via transformations, could make captured humans a treasured asset for breeders who are intent on passing valuable and otherwise unobtainable egg-moves onto Pokémon.

Pokémon-human genetics expanded, or, my grand unifying theory: This is essentially my effort to attempt to consolidate all the lore we know about the Pokémon world together in a way that explains my stories rules, in regards to how Pokémon and humans can breed, and why Pokémon can fuse with humans but cannot generally fuse with each other.

Essentially; at the beginning of time, Arceus set the events of the universe into play by creating Palkia, Dialga, Giratina, and the trio of lake Pokémon, alongside the Big-Bang. Upon the formation of planets, "seeds" were sent out in mass across the universe, in the form of Mews. Planets were also seeded with what would become beings such as Groudon, Kyogre, Regigigas, etc, which were terraformers, and other beings tasked with maintaining balance. Such beings are "outsider" Pokémon. They exist outside the standard biology found in life forms.

Mews covered the planet, leaving behind genetic material which contained the potential to form life as we know it. On earth, the predominate form this life took was that of Pokémon. However, the form it took on some planets was wildly different, leading to beings such as Deoxys. Over time, the Mew dwindled, their purpose fulfilled, eventually leaving behind but one, a failsafe in the event of a mass extinction event. Humans are actually beings such as Deoxys, originating from a space virus which fell to earth. The shared ancestry of Mew that both humans and Pokémon possess is what allows breeding and fusion; however their radically different biology is what allows humans to perform it unconditionally, unlike Pokémon (for instance, Mew and humans are the only organisms known to possess wombs).