triptoprofiling | 002 → {text} Violet City

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately. Mainly about the newcomers arriving in New Bark Town.

After the massive snowstorm that came in before the holidays, I think we can all agree there has to be a better contingency plan to get new arrivals the proper help they need to get by. Maybe there is a way we can get information out to them better. I'm open to suggestion but here is what I'm proposing:

A basic survival guide. We already have a guide outlining the wildlife here but nothing about basic wilderness survival. Under these conditions, having a sleeping bag is not enough to get by through the night.

To be honest, besides learning it from others, I do not know the first thing about surviving the outdoors. But I know there are others out there who do. If we all pool our resources together we can make something that will save any newcomer a whole lot of grief.

Now I'm willing to compile the information together. All I need is a little help with the legwork here so to speak. Here are a few items to give everyone an idea:

1.) Weathering your campsite
2.) Building a fire from scratch
3.) Geo-navigation
4.) Notable Wild Pokémon Dangers
5.) Storm/Severe Weather Preparation

Now I may have unintentionally left some subjects out. But if this is something you're interested in then send me a message.

[For those of you who are messaging Jayden via video be prepared to see a man all scratched up in the face from his new baby shiny Torchic he got for Christmas. Who knew baby fire chickens like to play peck the shit out of Jayden's face as soon as it hatches? So far the winning nickname for this little guy is SHOO!

]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Would he be reassured to know that Apollo's fended for himself alone in the wilderness for the last two years?

Also, in-game Apollo's info is solid because he knows this kind of stuff, but OOCly I'm just guessing at this based on my knowledge of how this stuff works in real life, so this might not be the official Route explanation.]

Telling the edible ferns apart is easy. The ones that aren't edible aren't poisonous either, they just taste really bad. I've found a few safe mushrooms that look completely different from all the other kinds, though I know that there are other safe ones.

Do you want me to see if I can find some to show you?

[Yep! Sounds like decent enough credentials in his book.

It's all good in the neighborhood. If anything, we can always just handwave that bit of info and be like VIOLA-- FOODSTUFFS!]

Yeah. That'd be helpful.

[*nods* I just wanted to put something reasonable there that Norman had the option of responding to.

There's no response for a few minutes before the feed returns to focus on the snow-covered top of a fern.]

This is the most common kind of edible fern that I've seen. You should check under trees for them first since there won't be as much snow there, but they grow in other places too. [His hand comes into view and gently knocks the snow off of the fern, then moves the camera a bit closer to give a good look at it.]

And these are a kind of mushroom that I know for sure are safe. [He walks the camera over to a fallen log that mushrooms have sprouted on, brushing off snow so that Norman can get a good look.]

It's definitely harder to find things in all this snow. Most of the edible plants here aren't very tall, so they got buried early on. It would be a lot easier if you could get the Pokémon with you to catch a Rattata or a Sentret to eat, but trying to eat them is like trying to eat a rock. [Why yes he did try when he first arrived.]

Edited 2013-01-08 03:05 (UTC)

[Yeah for sure! Thanks so much again for helping out! c:]

[Norman doesn't say anything for a good chunk of the time. He continues to look down at his down at his notes then back up at the screen to get a decent mental image of the plants being presented. Truth be told his artistic abilities are not up to snuff but he tries anyway at a rough sketch, writing notes besides them on their features.]

Not exactly a gourmet meal but it's a start at least. Thanks for finding that mushroom. That should give people an idea what to look for.

[He scribbles a few more notes in.]

May I have your name please?

Edited 2013-01-09 04:37 (UTC)

Food's food. As long as it keeps you alive it's good enough.

I'm Apollo.

[He nods. No complaints here.]

I'm Norman. Nice to meet you, Apollo.

[He pauses to put his pen down.]

It didn't look like you had much trouble gathering those plants. Have you been doing this for a while?

I've foraged for plants for as long as I can remember. I had to learn about new plants when I came here though.

How long did the transition process take?

[Out of sheer curiosity.]

I still learn new things about the plants here all the time, but finding out what most of the plants I've seen can be used for has taken... at least six lunar cycles - months. Traveling around let me see a few plants that don't grow everywhere, and some of them are only useful in certain seasons. It will probably be a long time before I know everything about the plants here, and I only spent a few days in the Kanto region, so there are probably a lot of plants there that I haven't seen yet.

That's still quite a lot to know. Not many people would risk their necks out in the wilderness to study that sort of thing. Compared to what's in the guide for Berries there are perhaps dozens of other plants people don't know about.

[In other words; That's pretty damn impressive, Apollo.]

I don't know why anyone wouldn't try and learn about the plants here. You aren't always near a PokéCenter when you or one of the Pokémon with you gets sick or injured, and buying all of your food from the stores takes a lot of money, so if you can find edible plants you only have to buy meat most of the time.

I just wish that the people who work at the stores could tell me what animal the meat comes from.

Oh.

[A pause.

Huh, well that shouldn't be a surprise by now. Still, how can no one in the store tell you where the meat comes from? It doesn't make any sense.]

I can tell you where they're from. No problem. Which one do you want to start with: beef, pork or chicken?

["Processing facility" isn't an animal, and there are no non-Pokémon animals (other than fish I think?) here, so questions are being raised, especially since he's personally confirmed that humans can't eat Pokémon.]

Chicken, I guess. I don't have any idea what animal it's from. Pork tastes like boar, only with less taste to it, and beef tastes kind of like deer, but chicken doesn't taste like anything I recognize.

[Good to know someone is a little curious about where their food comes from. Norman would be a little wary himself if he stumbled not only into a completely different world but didn't know the origin of his protein sources.]

Well, it's a bird about this big.

[He gestures his hands to box the approximate size for Apollo.]

They got a small beak on them and their feathers aren't as smooth as most flying-types you would find here. People eat them all the time back where I'm from. A lot of the times you can eat their eggs.

[He's gone from personally killing every meal to buying vacuum-wrapped packages of mystery meat from a store. The whole situation disturbs him.]

I've only eaten birds a few times. They're hard to catch. I've never eaten eggs before either.

I haven't seen any birds like that here though, just Pokémon. Have you? I want to see how they live.

[Disturbing, eh? Modern convenience can be odd like that. It could be worse.]

Not here but I-- You don't see them living a whole lot. Maybe if you visited a farm. They like to run around in the grass a lot. But they're harmless, not the kind of bird who would hurt another for no reason.

It would be easier to show you but I don't have a clue where these stores are getting them.

I was at the Moomoo Farm, but all I saw there were Pokémon. I haven't seen any animals here who aren't Pokémon, not even insects. I'm still not sure how this world can work with only animals as big as Pokémon.

002 → {text} Violet City

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