IC Inbox

[vrdantwind]

"Hey, this is Claude! Pretty sure I'm doing this correctly. You can leave me a message here, and I'll get to it as soon as I can. Talk to you soon~."

Comments

[fingersandteeth]

Exactly. I'm assuming it's death by murder or misadventure that are prevented, not natural causes.

[vrdantwind]

Well, I can see it being extremely rare and unusual for the people of this world to experience violence...but death by misadventure can't be unheard of, can it? A few of the descriptions of pokémon I've read in the Pokédex - especially the ghosts - are kind of dark. And you do have people running all over the wilderness, including kids. Accidents must happen, right?

I mean, I guess it's kind of a ghoulish thing to ask about, but it doesn't seem like something that should be too hard to confirm.

[fingersandteeth]

No, you're right. I probably should go research that. And maybe even if there's any record of attempted murders among the native people of this world. Even if most ways of death are prohibited, there's always being pushed from somewhere high.

[vrdantwind]

And it's definitely not like they don't have crime here. Team Rocket alone makes that obvious. I had at least one violent encounter while I was trying to help out at the shopping center, and another one that threatened to get violent before a friend intervened...and one death threat! So while I don't know if they'd have gone as far as trying to kill me - especially if it's known that murder doesn't really work around here - I do wonder at the idea of some kind of organized crime syndicate not having tried to, I don't know, 'disappear' people.

I mean, if I were a criminal with no concern for other people's well-being, especially one who wanted to intimidate people and pose a real threat, I'd absolutely explore just what kind of threats I could make and back up. So if anyone's already looked into those questions, it might be them. I'd love to get at any research they might've done...

[fingersandteeth]

Seriously? An actual death threat?

[vrdantwind]

Oh, yeah, definitely unambiguous. Some gestures are universal, I guess!

I wonder if that means they're not a native here? I mean, natives would know that kind of threat is pointless. That, or they were just counting on me not knowing...which, to be fair, I didn't at the time! But I've received so many death threats and actual murder attempts by now that I don't think it left the impression they probably hoped. Just another Tuesday for me! I guess that doesn't narrow things down any after all, though.

Of course, the final possibility is that Team Rocket absolutely has figured out how to get around the restrictions on murdering people...though I'd have to consider that an unlikely scenario. If they knew how to kill people, I think their impact on the world would be felt a lot more, and their operations would be a lot more sinister than just harassing people while ripping off a shopping center. I wouldn't expect them to just disappear so few unremarkable people here and there that no one actually caught on that Team Rocket was somehow behind it.

I'd still like to get at their research, though. Even if they've come to the conclusion that they can't kill people, despite their best efforts, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they've tried! And I want to know what they tried, and how, and what happened. The ways this place works are so mysterious; I don't know if any amount of information will help me understand it, but I at least like knowing what there is to know! And like you said, it's not exactly the kind of experimentation I'd ever be willing to do myself. But if someone already has, whether or not I approve of it...there's no point in ignoring what was already learned.

[fingersandteeth]

[Oh. Right. His little slit throat gesture. He'd hardly meant it. If he'd really meant to kill Claude, if he'd meant to do anything but taunt him, he'd have had Acatl teleport with him to about a hundred feat up and then let go.

(He remembers forcing a Loyalist off a roof his first Hunt of the Leaves. He hadn't really gotten a chance to look at the body, what with all the cops getting in the way, but at least he'd gotten in and out of the man's location without being noticed.)

This Claude has an interesting mind. Such a pity he wasn't a real Rocket]

I'd like to see that research too.

[He wonders if Beta rank is enough to access it.]

[vrdantwind]

A decent reason to investigate Team Rocket, then! Among all the other ones. It's probably dangerous to go poking around, but what are they going to do, kill me? We've established they probably can't!

Seriously, though, I'm curious about all kinds of things relating to Team Rocket. Someone at the shopping center mentioned they press-gang new people into their service, whether they like it or not - and I'm genuinely amazed that with that kind of practice, no one's simply crumbled the whole infrastructure from the inside yet. How on earth have their unwilling operatives not sold all their secrets out? How does Team Rocket know they won't?

[fingersandteeth]

[What.

Steven reads over Claude's reply once more, but it doesn't change.

What the fucking fuck?

Who the fuck is just... telling people that? Seriously? Seriously?

He's scowling as he types his own reply.]

I'd suspect they'd use both the carrot and the stick, whatever that may mean here.

[vrdantwind]

Oh, I'm sure. All I'm saying is, the carrot must be massive. And with death for disobedience off the table, I really wonder how creative they've gotten with the stick, too...

That said, though, even with all the incentives and disincentives they can muster, I still don't know how Team Rocket can trust so readily that no one's going to betray them. I mean, when you're running any kind of organization where information warfare can be impactful, isn't it important to have unbreakable trust in higher command and careful security measures among the ground troops? And that's with groups where everyone joins by choice. Forcing people into your service who may not feel any good will towards your group or cause, and who especially may not feel those things when you're not giving them any choice in being in your service or being privy to some of your secrets...well, let's just say it doesn't exactly seem like best practices for a shadowy crime syndicate. In fact, it seems just a touch nuts?

Maybe we should find that relieving, though. If no one from within Team Rocket's felt compelled to come forward to stop them, then maybe no one they've recruited has found the moral conflict so polarizing that they felt like they had to take action. Certainly Team Rocket seems like more of a high-key nuisance than the kind of threat I've had to deal with back in my own world - the kind of threat people would put their lives on the line to stop. Even the good people shanghaied into Rocket service must never have felt their moral codes pushed that far, or it would've happened by now.

[fingersandteeth]

I mean, there's a hell of a lot of people in my world willing to do practically anything for a job with health insurance or a pension plan or any of that. Throw in vision or dental and that's a pretty big carrot in itself.

[Steven would say that even if he hadn't spent the last two months before Arceus snatched him up doing day labor, for lack of a legal identity.]

But honestly, I think you're right that it really might be that most of what Team Rocket does... isn't that awful, at least compared to the way that organized crime works back in most of our worlds. I think the worst thing they've done since I came to this world was try to steal Lapras from the wildlife sanctuary--and even then, they did it so incompetently that Armin was able to assemble a team to rescue them within *days*--and this with a concussion!

[vrdantwind]

I'm honestly not following any of that first paragraph! I think whatever those things are that you're talking about, my world doesn't have them at all. (Well, I mean, I know what vision and dental mean, but it sounds like you're using them in a different way than I understand those words to work.)

You know, "Team Rocket hasn't been stopped or undermined because they're generally not that dangerous or competent" wasn't the conclusion I was expecting to come to from this conversation, but it's oddly reassuring. Not because I was worried about them for my own sake - I've dealt with actually dangerous assassins who could kill me - but more because I was worried about the people they've recruited, and kind of upset about them ruining the holiday market like that. Also, I hate to think of them stealing pokémon from people when trainers get so attached to theirs here. But it sounds like none of that needs to be stressed about too much.

[fingersandteeth]

Don't worry about it. Just know they'd be sufficient bribes for someone from my world.

Team Rocket *does* take Pokemon directly from people, either through pick-pocketing or by making the claiming of the loser's pokeballs part of a battle's terms. That really can't be denied. But otherwise...

Well. Just a list of things I remember Team Rocket doing since I got here, just by going with what got on the news or I heard about later (or in one case I was actually *there* for):

February - Stealing from the Pewter Museum Vaults
March - Stealing the Goldenrod Granbulls' Mascot 'Zeus'/Destroying Baseball
May - Stealing Lapras from the Wildlife Preserve
June - Terrorizing Kurt the Ball-maker and Stranding Him In The Slowpoke Well
July??? - (nothing on the news Sento Kiryuu starts claiming there's been a series of single night crime sprees in various cities, like some sort of muggle speedrun)
August (Pre-Sinnoh Trip) - Stealing Shinies From A Dog Show (in which I was in the audience)
August (During Sinnoh Trip) - The Tricky Bandits Steal From Wealthy People And Set Traps In Their Homes
August (End of Month) - Evolutionary Stone Heist at the Blackthorn Mine
September (Mid) - Raid on the Fuschia Gym Ends With Them Blowing A Hole In It To Escape The Jennies

And nothing since then, apart from the Christmas market, though I suppose there's been plenty of small scale single individual crime that just doesn't make the news. I mean, don't get me wrong, Team Rocket is a pain and a half, but they're not nearly as terrifying as they by all rights should be.

[vrdantwind]

For a whole laundry list of crimes, that's admittedly not too sinister of one. Although boy, they were certainly busy in August, huh? Maybe that's why there was such a large gap between September and December.

What's a muggle, by the way?

[fingersandteeth]

[Steven blinks twice, than rereads what he just typed.]

... a typo for 'mugging.' My God, I need a nap.

But yeah, August was pretty nuts as far as Rocket activity went. But I know most of us people from other worlds were gone for the middle of it, so that might have had something to do with it? Since, uh, it looks like otherworlders are better at fighting Team Rocket than the Jennies.

That's the 'Sinnoh Trip' that I mentioned. You know how we're only allowed to be in Kanto and Johto, right? Well, Sinnoh was another region that let us visit for two weeks in August, albeit only in a small handful of places. It was nice, actually, and it threw a lot of us together who otherwise might not have met. I actually met my current boyfiend on it.

[vrdantwind]

Hah! I thought it was just some weird word I didn't know yet.

[Wait until you talk to Neville, Claude.]

That sounds fascinating, getting to visit some whole other place that's normally off-limits...and congrats, by the way.

[fingersandteeth]

I mean, it might mean something in slang, but it was definitely a typo. Possibly because my employee, Scorpia, was talking about the Huggles in the background. (Mr and Ms Huggles are two of her Bewears. She's got four so far. They make good bouncers.)

The Sinnoh Trip was fascinating. I did a few radio segments about it, if you'd like to listen to them. Let me know if you want the MP3s.

And, well, thank you. I never expected to be with him--I was already dating someone when we met, but that... didn't work out in the end. And he helped a lot with me getting over my broken heart.

[vrdantwind]

Wait, Mr. and Ms. Huggles? Mr. Huggles hasn't made an honest pokémon out of Ms. Huggles yet? The scandal!

Or I guess they could be siblings, but scandal's more fun.

Radio segments, huh? I'd actually love to hear them. You've just got hidden depths all over, huh? A fight club, human and pokémon employees, radio recordings, Rocket activity chronicler, boyfriend...it's amazing there's enough hours in the day for you!

I'm glad you found someone, though. Especially at a good time to help you get over the last someone.

Honestly, as someone so relatively new, it's wild whenever I realize just how long other non-natives have been here. People with entire businesses and love lives, things that may have played out over the span of years...it's hard to fathom just being whisked away so suddenly from home and then being transplanted here for so long. It's not entirely unwelcome - especially since apparently I don't have to worry about my absence being noticed back home - but it's still a little jarring to think of this place becoming a new home in its own right. Of making a life here. Right now it still feels like a journey that's going to be finite in length, even if there's no end in sight. It feels transitional still, not permanent.

[fingersandteeth]

No, no, they're definitely dating. Scorpia's assured me on that point.

The radio stuff is because I used to work at the Tower. I started out in the receptions area, then they let me into the Newsroom back in May. I had a background in broadcast media back home? Television rather than radio, but it's similar enough. Fight Club happened because my ex-boyfriend, Jack, was looking to invest in a few new ventures--which is how Medusa, the resident burlesque club also exist by the way--and I had the idea for it and roped my friend Tyler into it pretty much right away. Tyler was actually the guy who ran Fight Club on a day to day basis until a couple weeks ago, but he disappeared about a week after Jack did and I... ended up in charge, with nothing but two native employees and some of Tyler's pokemon to help. Which lead to me leaving the Tower and hiring Scorpia and Chloe and thank God that Thace (my new boyfriend) is up to helping out with most of it.

But yeah, I'm glad I found him too. Jack and I were only nominally together by the end there--I was actually getting ready to leave him before he disappeared? Just because, well... the thing about dating a narcissist is that it's really great at first? Because his ego has him pulling out all the stops for you? But after you're past the early relationship, it starts to take its toll, because you're always putting more into the relationship than he is.

[And you know, the whole thing where Steven found out what Jack did to his daughter, but that's not the kind of dirty laundry you air to just anyone.]

But Thace isn't like that, thank god. Our relationship feels a lot more equitable.

[vrdantwind]

Considering they're already sharing a surname, I predict a happy future for the couple.

Man, I'm still learning this technology stuff. I think I read about the Radio Tower, at least. But a lot of the things you're talking about are still new to me. We lacked a lot of the amenities and advancements this world has back where I'm from.

That relationship sounds rough, though. Someone treating you well more to pump themselves up about being an amazing partner than because they care about you personally or wanting to make you feel good? No class at all. You seem like a nice guy; you deserve better. And it sounds like you've found it.

Is this Thace guy going to be jealous if you're eyeing up my friend while he's shirtless, though? Or does he appreciate a little eye candy himself and won't hold it against you?

[fingersandteeth]

He won't hold it against me. *Jack* was a bit jealous, though, so before I took Thace to bed the first time I admitted that I *will* get these crushes on other men but it's only, you know, a sex thing and I not one I'll physically act on... and he gave me blanket permission to look as much as I wanted, which was sweet.

Although, I mean, Jack *did* care to some degree. I don't want to say he didn't love me (in his own selfish way) at all, because he *did*. It's just I was always a bit secondary to himself in his affections. And I did learn a lot about being in a relationship and weathering fights and such from him. It wasn't all bad. Far from it. And for the longest time I was deliriously happy with him.

It's just that when it did go bad for me, it went bad *quick*. It took five weeks from when I started reassessing everything I knew about him to when I finally made the decision to leave him, only for him to disappear first.

And now he's here again, only ten years younger, and he doesn't remember me at all. It's strange and disconcerting. I don't know how I feel about it. From everything I can tell, Baby Jack is a better man now than he was when I was with him... but at the same time, I was burnt so badly by how it ended, that I wouldn't want to try again, even if I hadn't gotten a new boyfriend.

(I really *shouldn't* call him Baby Jack as we're both the same age now... but ten years made a *huge* difference in him.)

[vrdantwind]

[Claude is a little touched by how much Steven is trusting him with a lot of rather intimate personal details so early on in their friendship. (Claude personally wouldn't have called Steven more than a friendly acquaintance before this conversation, but surely a guy who's this willing to talk about himself and his business to Claude must be wanting to move towards proper friendship.)

It's not misplaced trust, either; Claude is unbelievably curious and nosy, but he's as good at keeping secrets as he is at prying into other people's. And he's too compassionate (and diplomatic) to use someone's personal information against them without some very significant stakes on the line. Barring Steven threatening people's lives or becoming some kind of war criminal, Claude's never going to leverage what Steven's telling him here.]

I'm glad you've got such an understanding boyfriend now. If this Jack was a narcissist like you say, I can understand him not wanting you to look at other guys...so I'm glad this Thace guy sounds more reasonable. Who can keep from looking sometimes, after all? It's how we choose to act that matters, not where we look or what we think.

There's a certain degree to which jealousy and possessiveness can be kind of hot...but it's a pretty fine line to walk. And it only really works with a partner who genuinely respects and trusts you.

But man...I can't imagine someone you were that close to vanishing and coming back younger, and not even remembering you. 'Disconcerting' is a mild word for it.

I wonder. Do you think younger Jack could be steered away from whatever unpleasant path his older self winds up on? Not for anything to do with you - you seem happy enough with Thace, so why try to fix what isn't broken? - but more as a thought exercise. Or simply lingering affection for an old flame in the form of maybe helping him be a better person. Obviously his older self never had his younger self influenced by time spent in this place, so...different experiences now might lead to a different outcome later, right?

[fingersandteeth]

[Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

Claude had the audacity to try to infiltrate the Rockets during the Christmas Heist. That took balls. While Steven doesn't really bear a grudge for anything that happened during it--they were all just trying to do their jobs, after all--he does feel like it would be a good idea for one of them to keep an eye on Claude and perhaps steer him away from trying something like that again.

So sharing something of himself to Claude? It's a way of cultivating that trust in Claude. To make him that much easier to keep an eye on.

And for all that it seems like he's disclosed a lot of intimate details to Claude, there's no real secrets in it. Nothing about what Jack did to his daughter. Nothing about how he snuck into Thace's dream during the weird weekend. Just that he'd met Thace when he was still with Jack, that Jack was a narcissist and that when things had gone bad with Jack, they'd gone bad fast. Steven was okay with people knowing that much.]

Oh, it can be hot. Definitely. But it's a fine line to walk and even when things were *good* with Jack, I was cautious of being on the wrong side of that line.

I'd like to think that Baby Jack could be steered away from the man he was going to become, but I don't think I could do it. I see too much of his future self in him to be able to interact with him consistently and comfortably. But maybe you or one of your friends could.

[vrdantwind]

[A fair plan, Steven. Claude is certainly more likely to trust Steven now with similar details about his own life...but, of course, Claude is - fortunately for himself - quite paranoid in his own right. He keeps secrets even from his closest friends who he can unreservedly trust; Steven won't find himself privy to much that's sensitive from Claude, especially only on the weight of personal-but-not-compromising tidbits.

Really, Jaskier enjoyed a faster and more intimate trust with Claude than this...but Jaskier is also someone Claude met before crossing Team Rocket. Before Claude had any enemies here. He's got more reason to be circumspect now.]

Oh yeah, definitely. I'm not sure a narcissist could walk that line at all.

That said, I can sympathize with not being able to interact with younger Jack for personal reasons. Even without hints of what he'll become, frankly, I could see it being painful as his ex and someone who used to know him so well, and yet isn't even remembered by him. I wonder if people who don't know the first thing about him - either about who he is now or who he's going to become - are necessarily the next best option, though...I mean, there's got to be someone who's more familiar with him that wouldn't object to dealing with him, right?

Besides, I'm kind of trying to help a friend walk a better path of his own. That's actually part of the reason I was wondering about younger Jack - I'm curious if catching someone before they make certain decisions, certain mistakes, can change where they end up. What happens to them, and the people around them.

[fingersandteeth]

[It's fine. He's planted his seed and is willing to see how it grows from here.]

There might be. I'm not sure who would be, though. He's burnt a lot of bridges over the years. About the only people from his world that are here are people who I wouldn't feel comfortable asking this of.

And, well, I don't know how well people who knew the older him would work. A lot of our mutual friends are either gone now or, well, I got them in the break-up. I don't know. He seemed to get along with Scorpia in his post--maybe I could coach her through it, even though she didn't really know him before.