leftinbasketforfbi | 1st Genius α Video/Action for New Bark Ω

[It takes him a bit to figure out how the hell to start the feed. When he finally does, all PokéConnect is treated to the sight of a deceptively calm man dressed in purple pants and a white shirt tied with a gray obi, the traditional psychic’s outfit. An Absol keeps pacing behind him, as if expecting him to fall over at any moment and preparing itself to catch him. Honestly, that’s because it is, since its new Trainer has had a massive panic attack that caused him to pass out once already, and Absol can sense that there will be more to come. This is going to be a long partnership.]

Morgan, if this is a prank, alright. You got me. You win the war.

[The man holds up his hands in defeat, still unnaturally calm.]

I don’t know how you did it, but you can stop now. I get it. You can make the Pokémon go away. Once again, I have no idea how you did it…

[His throat gets tight. He struggles to keep his breathing even.

Please, Morgan. Please oh please make this stop.]

But you can stop it now. I have a lot of work to do, and giving me strange clothes, asking a woman to pretend to be my mother, and trying to make me doubt my own sanity is not helping.

[Please let this be a prank. Please say he’s not completely insane.]

And you can turn off the music while you're at it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's not a prank, unfortunately. It's all very real.

[Is that an Absol?? Ohai Hope doesn't see a lot of that around.]

The music cant be turned off either, but the PokéGear has a radio function that allows you to choose what you would rather hear.

[Well, at this point, he's realizing it's not a prank. Now he knows he's schizophrenic. This is extremely upsetting for him, so he's settling for going numb.]

It does? Well, at least that, I guess. Does the music ever change on its own?

[His voice has gone flat. He's crazy. He's crazy. He's been so scared for so long, and now it had happened.

And there had been nothing he could do to stop it.]

[Raises an eyebrow. Okay, Hope's seen people shutting down a lot of times in his life, but this has got to be one of the most extreme reactions he's seen on a newcomer.]

It changes when you enter a new area, such as a city or a route.

... I have to stress this again-- it's all real. I don't know what you're thinking, but I can guess. Having a breakdown will do you no good, and your Pokémon may not know what to do should you indeed panic or shut down.

[Normally, he has very measured reactions to things, Hope. When his sanity is blatantly called into question? Ehhhh, he doesn't react too well to that.

The Absol dubbed Yang nods at Reid's side, trying to stress that it really sucks having to deal with a Trainer having a nervous breakdown. Even if Yang somehow found a way to deal with Reid during the first panic attack and subsequent passing out (Mom had to deal with a lot of that too).]

I don't know, Yang seems to have been handling himself so far. [He rubs his temples, squeezing his eyes shut. He needs to process. He needs to think about everything.] Saying it's real doesn't make it real.

[Hope's not some doctor or psychologist but he is a scientist and engineer and a damn good one at that. So that's what he uses.]

What would make something real for you? Sight? Sound? Smell?

... Not home. Don't say "home", because while it can be an answer for most, we're definitely not in our home worlds right now, and you may not have any of your friends here.

[He doesn't even need to think about it.]

My team. My team would make it real.

[He wants Morgan to tell him it'll be alright. He wants Emily to tease him for being so jumpy. He wants JJ to show him pictures of Henry, Hotch to tell him what to do, Garcia to tell him that he's still supported, Rossi to strut along and say that he's being ridiculous and he should calm down because Reid will never go crazy on their watch.

He wants his family.]

They're not here.

[Huffs-- not the kind that says "I am exasperated", but instead says "I've got my work cut out for me". Because he's sure that means not his Pokémon team, but his team at home, whatever their work may be.

... Hope doesn't have any training for this and it kind of sucks.]

I'm sorry that they're not here right now. [He really is.] I know how difficult it can be to be in an entirely different world without a familiar face to help you along but believe me when I say that you're not hallucinating nor dreaming.

And that you need to need to start thinking rationally about this.

I am thinking rationally. [No he's not.] In fact, I'm thinking in odds. I know this isn't a dream because I am able to feel pain and I am aware of the unreality of what's happening to me without being able to control it. That means that this scenario is either that my coworker is pranking me, I am hallucinating, or reality as I know it has departed from the fundamental laws it's followed since the theoretical moment after the Big Bang.

At this point, I realize my coworker isn't behind this. I don't doubt he could get a lot of people in on a joke, but he would never let it go on this long if he thought I was genuinely upset, so that leaves the latter two options. The odds of my hallucinating are much larger than those of this being real, which are basically nonexistent.

[No, actually that just sounds like a lot of rambling to Hope, not counting the things he doesn't understand because they may be cultural or world-related things.]

And how can you say that we're all just hallucinations? [An Umbreon yowls in offense in the background. Really now, master!]

You're rather quick to judge, it seems. But please, think about this first before doing anything else. This world is dangerous as it is, and you said it yourself-- you're able to feel here.

There are more creatures out there than just your Absol and the ones you can see behind me [a big cottony wing waves from behind him and Hope waves the Altaria away].

Well, if I'm hallucinating, there's no way for me to identify what is real and what isn't beyond trying to think about what would rationally be real. [And so far, he's had people jabbering about being trolls and giant robots and Pokemon, so he's thinking you're all just as fake as this world.]

I'm not--I'm not judging. I'm deducing the nature of the situation based on the facts. The facts are that it's more likely that I am hallucinating than it is that this is actually happening. [But he raises an interesting point, about getting hurt. Reid runs a hand through his hair, pursing his lips.

With hallucinations this intense, Reid has no way of knowing if he's sustaining an actual injury or if he just thinks he has. Or he could even be unaware of an injury he already has. The nature of schizophrenia is that it feeds slanted or outright false information to the senses, and thus people see, feel, hear, and just generally sense things that aren't there. He really is helpless.] I have no way of knowing that threats I perceive are real.

[Crosses his arms. Nope, he's starting to run out of options to say, but he manages to latch onto that last part.]

It may be true that you currently don't have a way of knowing if anything is real, even myself, but for now... I think you should operate under the assumption that this is real.

[He's probably going to get kicked for saying the next part-- hell, if he doesn't get kicked, he might just kick himself for it.] There is bound to be at least one hallucination looking out for the person, right?

[Yeah he might just have to kick himself.]

1st Genius α Video/Action for New Bark Ω

video;

video;

video;

video;

video;

video;

video;

video;

video;

video;

video;