>>56298923none of those are in PMD, and I'm using my imagination by looking for a way to translate game mechanics in a way that isn't exactly 1:1 and making an excuse for it to work. It's not about pseudorealism but suspension of disbelief, they're trying to portray a world that's more organic than the games themselves because one is a story and the other is a game, obviously they're not going to make you grind seven hours for a single move just to 'learn' it so they give you an item.
Imagine you're writing a story set in another rpg world that's not Pokémon but has 'rules' of a game—think of most isekai slop anime. Lets say the main character is very skilled with a sword but eventually finds an axe that's objectively better, in a game, said character would know how to use the axe without any previous experience but would eventually get better by skill trees or unlockables, the point is that the character immediately knows how to use despite never using one before because it wouldn't be fun to be locked to a single weapon. Now, in the case of a story/fanfic, it wouldn't make sense for that character to instantly know how to wield said axe and it would read as a very convenient plot device. The same case happens here with the agreed canon on the TMs, it doesn't only break the suspension of disbelief because 'hehe I absorb knowledge' but it's also a bad narrative device and the skills that the character learns feel unearned, like they didn't do anything to be able to use said skills, which is what happens in that story, KFC just finds it there and it's what ends up saving his life—it reads like a very convenient plot point.
It can also be translated in a more organic way like some other mechanics are in the clover canon like skills for example, take Chespin's overgrow, it is something that doesn't break suspension of disbelief, he doesn't say "Oh, I'm under 33% of HP! My Grass power has increased by 1.3x!"
