New story? One-off post? My stealth blog? Hoo knows…
>oh god, they’re going to call you the pokemon professor
>it didn’t help you just happened to end up as a grass type too so they could make tree puns
>the start of a new school year always brings in new concerns but the world has certainly changed since last spring
>there were lots of dumb names for it used on the news, everything from fictionalization to pokegeddon, but nothing ever stuck
>lots of people, wildlife and livestock were turning into pokemon
>as fantastical as it was for the first couple months, it also became inexplicably boring
>if it didn’t hit you or someone you knew, life was basically exactly the same
>there were concerns at first about whether it was contagious or infectious somehow
>this is where being a professor at a research university had its advantages
>when you woke up as a gangly owl person after graduation ceremonies had wrapped up, you immediately confided in your colleagues in the biology departments
>immediately being, as soon as you could figure out the logistics of a beak and your vocal chords
>even now, your speech is a little whistle-click-y but you swear it’s more intelligible than the average indian youtube tutorial your students used
>you were good enough friends for the research team to keep the change a secret for a while
>you weren’t the first case ever reported, but as the first one in the city, you did represent a major opportunity for them
>all the talk of antibodies, epigenetics, contact-tracing, and epidemiology went over your head
>but as a mathematician, you could appreciate when the statistics said you were an outlier
>you also really appreciated the confirmation that you wouldn’t spread it to anyone else
>when they published their study on the possibility of transmission, no one knew you were represented as Test Subject C