Nicolaus

Nicolaus
Created by	Maxim
Information
Full name	Nicolaus DeClark
Nickname	Nico
Species	Meowstic
Gender	Male
Orientation	Bisexual
Main Kinks	Equal relationships, vanilla sex, butt play
Occupation	Executive Director of the Plaisir Foundation
Origin	Professional breeder
Nationality	American

Description

Nicolaus DeClark is a peaceful, wholesome presence in the chaos of Plaisir. Known for his approachable and mild-mannered attitude, his stoic body language, and his insistence on wearing clothes when most go nude, Nicolaus strives for a level-headed and constructive life no matter what goes on around him. Nevertheless, he frequently ends up dealing with crises of conscience or emotion, more regular administrative crises, and the constant battering tide of Plaisir’s feral environment.

In his most recent depictions, Nicolaus works as the Executive Director of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization called the Plaisir Foundation. The foundation is little more than a legal and bureaucratic entity, letting Nicolaus direct money from Plaisir’s revenue into grants for local charitable organizations. He is the only salaried member of the foundation, with Jack and Firenze as volunteer members of the executive board. While Nicolaus works out of an office in the Café Plaisir building, he is legally not a Plaisir employee, reporting directly to Jack and Firenze as colleagues.

Sexuality

In the wild, lurid jungle of fearsome domination and eager submission at Café Plaisir, Nicolaus distinguishes himself by avoiding both camps. While he can humor the desires of dominant or submissive partners to a degree, he consistently puts the mutual enjoyment of all parties first. As a result, he refrains from seeking out bondage, wrestling, denial play, or any other activity that would deprive someone of their self-control, though he has been persuaded to get involved in such acts for other parties' benefit. He has also never paid for sexual services at Plaisir or any other business, preferring his partners to participate for their own enjoyment of the act.

Nicolaus is evenly bisexual and has chosen intimate partners regardless of their gender. He has also demonstrated no strong preference for species, except that his partners be approximately the same shape and size as him. To that end, when he encounters an intimate partner who is much larger than him (which happens with most partners, since he is a Meowstic), Nicolaus habitually uses his Growth ability to enlarge his own body and bring their sizes closer together.

History

Origins

Nicolaus was hatched in captivity shortly before the Liberation, at a private breeder in Tulsa. Still a juvenile Espurr when the Liberation took place, he never entered the care of a human trainer. Instead, he was adopted by two Pokémon, a Gardevoir mother and a Kadabra father. Nicolaus received a public schooling and performed well in his academics, but he chafed under the controlling behavior of his adoptive parents, and so he left home as soon as he reached adulthood.

For Plaisir's purposes, Nicolaus first appeared in the story Copernican Theory as a guest, seeking social company at the Café. At the time, he was working freelance as a copywriter and taking online college courses and living in his own apartment, meaning he had very little money to spend on anything at the Café, but he nevertheless made early friends in Fable and Vara. The latter, he moved in with during the events of Random Chance. The same story saw him taking up employment at Café Plaisir.

Digital Media Manager

Whatever faults lay in Café Plaisir, one thing was always in its favor: It was never boring.

—The Second Spring, pt. 1: Opportunity Cost

For the following two years, Nicolaus worked at Café Plaisir as its digital media manager, putting him in charge of the Café’s website, blog and (most critically) its online menu. At first, Nicolaus conducted the entire job through his own personal laptop, but the administrative staff rapidly moved him to a newly constructed office in Home Away From Home. His duties included interviewing new waiters to build their online profiles, managing those profiles in the online menu, publicizing upcoming events (and writing news-style blog articles on them afterward), and managing the design of the website. Meanwhile, social media linkage, SEO, metadata and other more online-only efforts remained in the hands of Nikki.

Nicolaus faced his first major hurdle during the events of The Second Spring, when the Oklahoma state legislature moved to vote on a bill called the Pokémon Reproductive Rights Act. This bill would criminalize the sex work that previously had remained in a legally gray area at Plaisir, making it an existential threat to their business model. Nicolaus became involved when a Meowstic lobbyist by the name of Eloise Dubois asked to interview him about his experience at Café Plaisir, wanting to hear a well-informed perspective on the oldest Pokémon-run brothel in the state. This moment also marked Nicolaus’ meeting the Flareon Viola, who arrived as an unemployed guest and rapidly decided she wanted to work at Plaisir — a business that soon might no longer be able to receive her. Suffering badly from the stress of his unwanted responsibility, Nicolaus called upon Jack and Firenze for help, and together they formulated a plan to deal with the interview.

When Nicolaus finally met with Eloise, his plans carried him through much of the conversation. But the discussion eventually turned to a question he could not plan for: What gave Pokémon the right to assume freedoms that even humans did not have? Nicolaus’ answer, improvised on the spot under duress, persuaded Eloise to lobby for an amendment to protect businesses like Plaisir. This incident also led to Nicolaus receiving from Eloise a prototype TM for the move Growth, normally restricted to grass-types, but retooled in this case to work on Meowstics.

The next major turn of events came during The 918, when Nicolaus and Baron met a Lucario named Brett who did sex work at the Tallgrass casino on the outskirts of Tulsa. The three Pokémon traveled together to the casino to enjoy its services as guests, but while Tallgrass vastly outstripped Plaisir in size and revenues, the venue visibly lacked Plaisir’s sense of warmth and community. Brett eventually confessed to Nicolaus and Baron that he strongly disliked his work at Tallgrass, and that he wished he could do something else.

Nicolaus took this revelation with him back to Plaisir and told Jack about it, hoping for some kind of intervention on Brett’s behalf. Jack had no way to help, and Nicolaus was left helpless about his new friend’s predicament. Fortunately, Brett was able to handle the situation himself by quitting Tallgrass and taking up clean waiter work at Plaisir until he could find a different job — it turned out he had never needed a rescuer at all. Still, the experience left Nicolaus with a metaphorical bad taste in his mouth, being unable to help someone in so much need.

Creating the Plaisir Foundation

It is tempting for many of us to say: ‘Good enough. The system is not perfect, but it works. We should count our blessings and move on.’ But the Liberation has not stopped. It cannot stop now. … Who speaks for them, if not us? Who protects their rights and their dignity, if not Equality for Pokémon?

—Dr. Malachi Euclase, Deviating from Convention, pt. 2: By and For

Things came to a head for Nicolaus during Deviating From Convention, where he attended an annual conference for the political action group Equality For Pokémon (or EFP) in Tulsa. He met the Mightyena Amarok for the first time while waiting in line to get in, and together with Jack, they toured the convention center and its many events. The inspirational stories Nicolaus saw from other Pokémon there, most of whom did not enjoy the privileges of life at Plaisir, exacerbated his doubts caused by the trip to Tallgrass the year before.

Jack was scheduled to appear at a panel of small business owners in the region, but after an unfortunate incident involving a toilet lid, he suffered a concussion and was unable to participate. Nicolaus reluctantly took his employer’s place when he discovered that the panel was being managed by none other than the lobbyist Eloise Dubois, whom he had met more than a year earlier. Despite his nerves, Nicolaus acquitted himself well on stage, working alongside the row of other panelists and keeping Plaisir visible.

During the private reception after the panel, Nicolaus met his very first legendary Pokémon: the Ozark Plateau Zekrom, known commonly as Ozark, who had attended the event and watched the panelists speak. He and Ozark exchanged very few words, but the powerful experience nevertheless caused him to rethink his direction in life. Shortly afterwards, Nicolaus informed Jack that he wanted to change his job description if he was to stay at Café Plaisir, and the Plaisir Foundation was conceived on the spot.

Since then, Nicolaus has settled into a routine common to the nonprofit industry: sifting through grant requests and finding the ones most likely to accomplish lasting changes with the grant money. The work does not pay as well as his previous job as the digital media manager, but he is much happier for the change. He has even kept his same desk, and many of the same co-workers as before still spend time underneath it. For the moment, life is good.