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Laia in Pokémon
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Then she'll go read in the Center all evening.

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Which book is she starting with?

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She'll start with the recommendation.

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The Light in the Tower, by an author named Shauntal and professing to be "Based on a true story!", is full of beautiful descriptions and vivid metaphors. The plot is a little thin, but the characters are full of personality and depth, even the minor characters, antagonists, and Pokémon (none of which can speak).

Some things Laia might pick about the surrounding society:

  • The norms around hospitality are enormously different from Ostenso. At several points, the child protagonists stay in random people's wilderness cabins, and the owners are occasionally a little grumpy but no one ever seems to worry that they might refuse to host them.
  • These children are... around twelve years old... and no one thinks it's at all unreasonable for them to be going off alone to travel the region, or for that matter for them to be investigating crimes. That could just be a story convention, but this was in the adult bookstore.
  • Pokémon seem to have a number of different "types," which appear to be intrinsic properties of a given species. A major plot point hinges on the existence of "Ghost-type" Pokémon, but the novel is assuming more background context than Laia has, so it's not entirely clear how similar those are to the ghosts on Golarion.
  • Absolutely no one in the story seems to have heard of the existence of non-ghost afterlives. They barely even have the concept of alignment; characters talk about "doing the right thing" or imply that other characters are acting unethically, but they don't talk about it the way anyone on Golarion would, and they definitely don't seem to have "Lawful" and "Chaotic" as basic concepts.
  • The author seems to think gender distinctions are barely worth remarking on. Characters are described as "boys" or "girls," but this isn't particularly treated as something that might be expected to affect their actions in any way.
  • Human-usable magic is much rarer than on Golarion, and mostly seems to work very differently from wizards or clerics, though some people do have supernatural abilities in various forms. (One of the main characters has some sort of supernatural ability to sense danger in advance, but it's not a spell and frankly sounds very difficult to do without prophecy.)
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...well, this isn't Golarion, maybe Aroden didn't screw everything up here and prophecy works! She wouldn't know what spells to ask for at first circle that could take advantage of that, but it's abstractly interesting.

If nobody has to personally fight because they're all doing it by proxy through Pokémon it makes sense that there would be less of a gender skew - if somebody attacks you, you fend them off with your Pokémon whether you're a boy or a girl, and extending that to the kind of attack that can leave you knocked up isn't that much of a stretch...

Do the little screens on her Pokéballs say what types her own Pokémon are?

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It takes a little bit of tinkering with the buttons, but eventually she can learn that Wooliam is Electric-type, Pauta is Water-type, and Hoja is Bug/Grass-type.

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Well, seems probably wise to have an assortment. Did the book indicate what the types are best at?

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The novel seems to mostly take it for granted that everyone already knows what the types are particularly good at, but it's possible to infer some things. Most Pokémon seem to be able to learn moves with thematic elemental powers; sometimes travelers use these for utility, having a Fire-type light a campfire or using a Water-type move as makeshift Create Water, though it doesn't seem impossible in principle for Pokémon to learn moves that correspond to other elements. Psychic-types seem to be associated with mind-affecting powers of various sorts. There's a reference to Electric-types being fast, although Wooliam is not fast at all so that might not be universal.

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Huh. Does anybody look chatty here in this Pokémon Center?

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Yes, it seems to have filled up now that it's getting closer to evening. There's a group of three children who look to be around twelve years old talking excitedly about the events of the day, and an older man wearing a hat with a light on it chatting with one of the clerks, and a few other people who aren't talking to anyone.

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What are the events of the children's day? She'd like to segue gracefully into the request for introductory Pokémon type tutoring.

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They're discussing an attempt at challenging Roxie's gym. Two of them got stuck on other gym trainers; the third one made it to Roxie and lost there. The three of them are divided on the best strategy — one of them thinks they should get their Pokémon some more practice battling first, another one thinks the problem is mainly that they were using poor tactics for fighting a Poison-type gym, and the last one wants to give up for now and go west to Aspertia City to challenge someone named Cheren instead. Partway through their debate, they get sidetracked into discussing whether Roxie's band is better or worse than a music group from their hometown.

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"What types are good against poison? I don't know these things because I'm from another planet."

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"So it depends on whether you're talking about your moves or your Pokémon. Psychic or Ground moves will hit them harder—"

"—well, not the Koffing, because they float," says one of the other kids.

"Ohhhhhhh, is that why that wasn't working, that makes sense. Anyways, for your Pokémon, the best type to fight Poison-types with is Steel. But Steel-types are pretty rare around here."

"Wait, did you say you were from another planet? Like, another planet-another planet, not just another region or something?"

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"Pretty sure it's another entire planet. So I don't know anything at all about types! Pokémon are super different there."

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"Oh, types are super easy!"

"Are not."

"Water beats Fire, Fire beats Grass, Grass beats Water, and don't try to punch a ghost—"

"I didn't say none of them were easy."

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"I've got an Electric and a Water and a Bug/Grass. Where does that leave me?"

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"You shouldn't use the Bug/Grass against Roxie but the other two are fine."

"Be sure to buy some antidotes though."

"Oh, good idea."

"What are Pokémon like on your planet? Do you have any pictures?"

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"Antidotes? Uh, I'm no great shakes at drawing but I do have a spell that can summon something of a type I'm used to. Just for a few seconds though."

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Now all the kids are looking at her raptly.

"Can we meet the alien Pokémon? I want to meet the alien Pokémon."

"I've never seen an alien before! Except you!"

"—Antidotes cure poison," one of the kids clarifies belatedly.

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"Sure! But again it will be very brief. I'm not powerful enough to keep it for long."

And she summons a celestial hawk to sit on her forearm.

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The kids' eyes go wide.

One of them waves to the alien Pokémon. One of them holds up a small device. 

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The hawk makes a piercing shrill noise and vanishes.

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"That was so cool."

"What kind of Pokémon was that?"

"Is there a way for us to learn how to get Pokémon like that to show up?"

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"That was a celestial hawk! There are also material hawks which would look a lot like it except less metallic and not tame like the summonable kind is. I can cast spells like that because I'm a cleric of Shelyn but I think all clerics and also wizards can cast the spell, it wouldn't have to be Shelyn in particular."

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