The Ethics of Pokemon

by TrainerMattStories

Companion piece to the various works that I will eventually be posting. My attempts to address some of the issues surrounding NSFW pokemon stories, without forcing people to read every single individual work to understand.

1. Chapter 1

The Ethics of Pokemon

In the games, it's made quite clear that pokemon are – for the most part – treated as equals wherever possible. Obviously, displaying this realistically would be hell from a gameplay perspective, so questions like "What actually happens to a pokemon in a pokeball or in PC storage?" or "If all pokemon are animals, are all pokemon vegetarian? And if so, why do so many have obvious carnivore-based charateristics?" are glossed over, for the most part.

But if I want to write fics, I need in-world answers for these, if only for my own peace of mind. While I could address them in the fics themselves, often they would be extremely immersion-breaking, unless I was a much better writer than I actually am. In addition, they would be relevant to all of the fics I write. So either I have to repeat the explanation every time I use them, or I expect my readers to need to read everything I write, in the correct order. In short, this way is easier – for me, and, hopefully, for my readers. It also means I get to dump my exposition rants somewhere useful.

First and foremost, I want to make three points very clear:

First, everything I write here is my personal explanation. I will be trying to draw from in-game reference material, but in all honesty there is a whole lot in there that alternates between utterly terrifying and completely ridiculous. Magcargo, I choose you!

"Magcargo's body temperature is approximately 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Water is vaporized on contact. If this Pokémon is caught in the rain, the raindrops instantly turn into steam, cloaking the area in a thick fog."

- Pokedex Entry, AlphaSapphire ( . )

18,000 degrees Fahrenheit is roughly 10,000°C, approximately 5 times the boiling point of iron. I'm sorry, but that. Is. Not. A. Thing.

So instead, I will be trying to explain my own way through.

Second, Pokemon are not human. This is an issue that is more commonly encountered in hard Science Fiction, in that aliens cannot be held to human morals or thought patterns. There will be fundamental differences that mean that some concepts simply will not translate across. Put simply, they don't think the same way.

Third: Most, if not all, of the fics this is written for will be at least mildly NSFW. I understand that this is not for a lot of people, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. However, part of the point of this document is to deal with many of the arguments that I've had over the years – so if anyone has an cogent, logical issues with this content (rather than just "Eww!1! pokeporn is gros"), I would be more than happy to try and address them.