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agentc0rn · 4 months

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Kieran’s story as a loner champion rival character who challenged the game narrative + parallels with the DLC legends - another character essay

Okay, so this is another long rambling of mine that is probably an overthought (and reflective of past analysis) but anyhow, I like to think that Ogerpon, Terapagos and Pecharunt represent certain aspects of Kieran’s arc (albeit not in order). Although Kieran says himself about how he wants to be like PC/us, to be strong like the hero of the story, he outshone others in terms of being a protagonist; not in terms of simply as a central focus of the story but his desire to acquire qualities of a protagonist, which is very evident in his dominant role in the story. Kieran was a protagonist (along with Carmine) but not the main character in terms of the conditions it came along of being one.

To start, Ogerpon being a social outcast due to a great misunderstanding of her display of strength and act of self-defense as a threat is ironically picked up Kieran through his projected image of a strong “oni”; he later becomes this feared champion whose standards pushes out and judges others based on strength. Consequently, other students view him as overly stern and restrictive. He adopts that oni image and its attributed value of strength in who he sees himself as and subconsciously shows to others. Obviously the context of these circumstances are different, but Kieran ends up with a poor reputation just like Ogerpon did (He also takes the "treasure" - in this case Terapagos - like the oni which stole treasures in the tale of Momotaro).

Secondly, terapagos and its too short arc represents the full extent of Kieran’s desire, his potential and who he is; a reclusive, small being who possess great power and status, which, with neglect, caused great changes when it came to the tipping point. Moreover, Terapagos is the "monarch" of area zero, as evident with the tera crown, just as Kieran was the Blueberry champion/king. On another note, his quote of "I don't need my old self anymore - I will show you that I can change again!" resonates with the idea of transforming - physically and mentally - in conjunction with the terastalization, ultimately becoming who you want to be (penny says this as well).

To add further on, Terapagos' berserk state paralleled with Kieran’s monomia of battling and power (demonstrated in his behaviour at the championship match) that long affected his own well-being and his surroundings. The funny thing I personally noticed is that, Kieran took over that role of “control” as opposed to his possesion under dokutaro theories by capturing Terapagos and using it as a final resort to achieve his goal.

Likewise with Pecharunt's motive, Kieran was someone who deeply wanted something that resulted in the harm of others and himself (also mentioned in the case with terapagos). Kieran wanted not just strength, but also honesty and appreciation (form of love) from others. As our miscommunication led him astray, it persuades him that his self-worth is only found in strength (physically and mentally as a trainer and person), and that battling is no longer fun but a measure of worth, a trial determining the strongest who would outlive the weakest. He worked so hard to fulfill his goals for his own sake yet simultaneously for you in that sense of being proven wrong.

He gave up so much of himself by devoting his time, energy and studies to bettering himself (which is very ironiccc). Similarily, Pecharunt gave so much in return for its desire to be loved more - it took as it gave. Both have a warped sense of the things they love (or love in general) in their own respective ways. For Kieran, battling was a test of worth and that the things he liked ought to be strong. He went through such a training arc just to prove himself to you (he outright says so). Again, I repeat, Kieran did this all to fight you, ultimately to prove to you and himself that he made the right choice, that the effort for going through all of this was worth it.

Pecharunt went through all the trouble in seeking out the masks just to appease the couple (I would admit this just ties to the theme of treasure and its consequence with obsession in general, but this analysis aims to focus on the connection between the characters on a specefic level). Its grasp of love comes off as materialistic, more so conditional (same way applied to Kieran = battling in which determines one's success that is only found in strength; that to be a friend/rival, he needed to prove himself).

I have no epic quote/ending for this, oh well (it came off better in my head). edit: grammar issues and revised idea phrasing

#ac rambles #kieran pokemon #pecharunt #the teal mask #terapagos #Ogerpon #pokemon scarlet and violet #pokemon sv #rival kieran #pokemon kieran #Don’t mind this incoherent wall of text #I just wrote and zoned out

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crewofthegoldrush · 5 months

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get early access or leave a tip!

a crossover design idea as a gift to my party. i had a lot of fun keeping the designs to just the starters and deciding which PC matched the best. each have their own unique tera types that i tried to reflect in their designs

#dnd #dungeons and dragons #pokemon #pmd #art only #tera type variants #monty: charmeleon (steel)#capella: piplup (dark)#swift: pichu (fairy)#aubrey: grovyle (poison)#wayfinder: wartortle (steel)#compass: quaxly (dragon)#brunhidle: ivysaur (rock)#demetrius: frogadier (flying)#liseran: raboot (fighting)#breezy: eevee (psychic)#ororo: sprigatito (electric)

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valmnera · 4 months

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I didn't post this here yet, but here's a screenshot I took of Richter during the Tera cutscene. God I love the sprite work in this shot.

Captured using a PS5, so it's fully HD. If you haven't played Rondo of Blood yet, go play it! It's considered one of the best, if not the best Pc Engine CD game ever made. Highly recommended for fans of retro games/anime.

And yes, this is what Richter's victory pose in Smash Bros. is based off of.

#rondo of blood #richter belmont #castlevania #pc engine #akumajou dracula

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jester-creates · 2 months

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Full list of most of my ocs

ill just list important stuff about them (and maybe some bits on au versions of them.) Under read more cause this is going to be long. maybe a two parter. Feel free to ask about any of them

Oliver (known as Shifting Baker in the oc title ask game

I Have a few consistent traits for him. He is always on the range of Hard of Hearing to Deaf. He is always a shapeshifter(cause of which changes depending on the version). He is almost always transmasc, Biromantic and ace. He also always has naturally white hair. He loves baking

some versions of him (plus nicknames):

Playdo (Tma version of oliver)

he's almost fully a Stranger avatar after he got erased from memory after a very dumb wish. uses a hearing aid. has a boyfriend. Gets regular scam calls from the circus. (There's another au version of him where he got taken by the Circus)

Expo (Experiment au Oliver)

ditto hybrid after experimentation stuff. (au is partly inspired by Chained Wings by Vampirebadger) Fully Deaf, uses notepad or phone to mainly communicate, eventually learns sign. (i ended up shipping him with Nemona). Also loves to battle.

Change-o (pla pirate au version)

He's a Changeling here. with one level in rogue. shows up for at least one arc.

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Juliana (she was originally the sv female mc but i changed enough about her that she is an oc now. i never got a better name)(aka Chaotic One in the title ask game)

consistent traits for her:

Oliver's sister (whether biological or self appointed). also typically has white hair. She's a lesbian.

some versions of her(no nicknames yet):

Tma version

biological twin to Oliver. randomly noticed a person in old family photos that she swore was never there before and goes down a rabbit hole of finding more and more evidence of an entire sibling she forgot about

Experiment au version

Miraidon hybrid after unethical science in area zero. twin to Oliver as well but they don't find that out for a while. (ended up shipping her with penny)

pla pirate au version

She's a Goblin here and runs a scam with Oliver. Shows up in at least one arc in this au.

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Cassandra Achroma (aka the Victorian Biologist)

She is a Colress ancestor oc that I solely use in Experiment au. She does a lot in that au though. She's also Aroace (but very invested in her coworkers love life. It's free entertainment). She's also technically the cause of her own time loop.

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Brittle (aka The Ghost)

And then there's Brittle... She's dead.

She is also transfem and French. Her full name is Peanut Brittle. She named herself.

Experiment au version

She's a rotom after she dies due to science gone wrong. ends up haunting two of the scientists after that. ends up being caught by Juliana somehow

Pirate au version

Reborn (undead) human. lives with Scarlet. (may also be part of the scam Oliver and juliana are doing)

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Scarlet (Aka Feral Flower)

Became an oc after i made a joke character who is a floette that knows Bite and got attached to her. No matter what amount of class or refinery it eventually puts on, she is always itching for a fight and it's clear that it wants one. She's always heavily related to plants.

Experiment au version

Just a flabebe/floette/Florges that knows Bite. She gets better at not biting things as it gets older. It was caught by Juliana in a dark tera raid.

Pirate au version

A summer Eladrin (Feywild elf). She has levels in Barbarian and Druid. Always ready to fight. Lives with Brittle.

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Tees (aka The Singing Soldier)(originally my dnd pc)

It's a robot with sentience forced upon it. As well as a moustache. It likes the moustache though. It was not built for war or fighting, even though it ended up doing a lot of that, but instead to be a performance (like one of those guys who advertise war) and for moral support (its preprogrammed stuff was not that good at it, very superficial.) It speaks with a British accent. It is compulsed to follow any order given to it.

Tma version

This version of Tees was one of the automatons at that one version of the Unknowing in the 1700's. It gained sentience after the ritual collapsed, likely due to a bit of Slaughter shrapnel finding it's way into it. It starts wandering trying to fill the void of its purpose. All the while the Slaughter shrapnel begins to corrupt its alignment to the Stranger until so little of it is left that Tees begins to have an identity. It ends up fighting in a couple wars before being kidnapped by the Circus (cause it was part of that older Stranger ritual). Makes friends with an au version of Playdo who also got kidnapped for being a Stranger avatar in the wrong place and wrong time.

Original dnd character

Definitely not haunted and given sentience and magic due from its dead friends (who are definitely not an off-brand version of the Mechanisms). Made for moral support forced to babysit the rest of the party. Once scared off a Death God.

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Marcus Quillia (aka the Burned Detective)

One of my oldest ocs. A Private detective who was in a fire directly related to the death of his cousin/best friend. He then wants revenge against what took his cousin from him. He also got fire powers from that fire. He has black and white peppered hair after it.

Marked (ocverse) version

A private detective who tends to be hired by the police. He has a personal vendetta against the international thief known as Jester after an insane Rube Goldberg series of coincidences made it look like they were the ones who killed his cousin. (Actually due to a different oc I'm still formulating so not on this list yet) way too complicated to get into here. He gets a therapy dog after the fire.

he has the Mark of The Burned

Tma version

he was marked and attacked by a Desolation creature which sparked a hatred of Monsters (Fear creatures and avatars specifically). 1 step away from becoming full Hunt/desolation avatar, 1 or two especially cruel kills to throw away his humanity.

he is really good at his job though (thanks to that hunt alignment). he manages to find a person erased from memory years ago even after they changed their gender. (Juliana hired him to find Oliver). (he also later tries to kill oliver because he accidentally did a Stranger avatar thing in front of him.) (in the version where Oliver gets kidnapped, he does manage to help (by getting his killing monsters fix from other circus members)

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Jester (aka masked Jesters)(not my sona)

surprisingly i only use these guys in my ocverse.

They are a pretty famous thief, loving to rob things and maybe return things if they feel like it. Accidentally managed to get framed for murder during.

they have DID even if it's a bit magically different from standard. they have 4 personalities.

they have the Mark of The Masked. they have three masks that they can switch between for specific powers. this comes with a few drawbacks. each mask is only tied to one of the personalities and only functions when they put it fully on and its assigned personality is fronting and the only remotely responsible one is not tied to any of these masks.

I'll probably explain more in a different post.

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Arthur (Aka King Of Stories)

He's an amnesiac with a texan accent who woke up in a fantasy land (modded minecraft) and eventually finds a kid, whom he adopts(Sigyn <3). He ends up getting mainly involved with fire magic. he names most of the things he tames/adopts after the myths he remembers

he was a ex-soldier who later went into museum curation before he got isekai'd. he's wearing his uniform still but it's been through a lot and he's repaired it with magical thread.

He may or may not have committed necromancy and he may or may not be covering up the permanent scar with a mask he found while exploring. A father's love can bring them to some dark places.

he's also taken up sewing recently

Tma au version

He's still an ex-soldier turned museum curator here, but that changes when the Eyepocalyse comes around. He was one of those who didn't exactly feel Fear after an encounter so he can roam the domains, but of course the Eyepocalyse had to change that and gave him someone to Fear for. (Sigyn <3) She joins him as he roams the domains but now the creatures/domain people will notice them as they move. When they attack, they don't go for Arthur, they go for Sigyn instead.

He's a bit Desolation aligned so he can have fire powers. His main weapon he uses to attack is a axe/Labrys he stole from the museum he worked at when the eyepocalypse started.

He does end up fighting some avatars as he goes through domains

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Sigyn (<3) (aka young Witch)

She's an adaptation of a modded minecraft npc I got attached to.

She's a young witch/wixie (not human though) approximately a 7 year old, but still very knowledgeable about potions.

Arthur found her after he got a request from a paranoid cleric to see if someone was breaking into their church thing while they slept. Sigyn was actually doing so, to try to teach herself to read and to use the potion stand in the church.

She can fly using her broom.

TMA au version

Arthur finds her in a domain dedicated to the Corruption. She was the avatar in charge of it, a child giving adults poisonous potions they cant refuse, too young to really understand what she's doing to them or what's happening with the apocalypse. She ends up going with Arthur as he roams, looking for any safe haven in this apocalypse.

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Wilhelm von Wolfgang

He's a rich bastard (/affectionate). He is his country's greatest violator of labor laws but keeps getting out of it cause he's rich. I hate him. He's one of my favorite characters to write/play as. He cannot stand still without the aid of a cane. He's basically like if a werewolf was a capitalist in both forms. His view of people poorer than him oscillates between 'I can use them' and 'I never want to see them again'. He's neutral evil. He will skip any corner to make more money. I love him.

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Acheron Atropos

he's a goth king literally. I made him for a friend's (@/shattered-hue) ocverse where we made characters based based off of bugs and plants and Acheron was made from the Death's Head Moth, whose scientific name is where i pulled his name from.

(still working a bit on him)

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Sylvan (aka Traveling Librarian)

Sylvan becomes a Head Librarian of a Branch of an Infinite Library after they manage to survive to basically the end of his universe after one of the worst outcomes of 2020, which was all the Stars decided to poof due to multiverse reasons.

he occasionally visits other universes to just get Stories. As an Infinite Library always has room for more books.

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Virginia Berry(aka the Captain)

From my ocverse: Marked. She has a tattoo of a ship on her back that she can turn into an actual ship that she can control. She has the Mark of the Captain.

I got her name by putting together two of the more famous female pirates.

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[somehow unnamed as of yet](Aka Truth's artist)

from my ocverse. they have the ability to see a person's greatest secret drawn onto them. (as a general example, a person whose greatest secret is that they killed someone would would have blood drawn onto them). it can be very visually overstimulating for them at times. They ended up getting a (rather bad) job for the government, cause despite how old these "Marks" are they're still rather unknown.

#jester speaks #ocs #long post #i am not tagging all of them #this beast of a post is finally done #don't ask me why the last guy is still unnamed after multiple years of them existing

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strixhaven · 1 month

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What about YOU, tell me about your favorite blorbo of late

^^ me receiving this ask and typing it all up

dead serious though, my tiefling blood hunter Iziador has been on my mind so much as of late. I’m reeeeally digging this revamped version of him and a lot of the lore we’ve come up with so far! write up a decently long response to a previous ask about him here, but some other fun tidbits i forgot about/have expanded upon since (spoiler warning for my fellow players!):

• his hellish resistance is actually to cold damage, and his abilities are based off of levistan tieflings—he starts off knowing the ray of frost cantrip (though his magic’s WIS-based instead of CHA-based), then gains both armor of agathys and a cold damage version of hellish rebuke at level 3, and darkness at level 5. ty tera you mean everything to me

• we’re also using the dark gifts to give more bonus & disadvantages to the PCs, and izzy has the Echoing Soul one. He gets two extra skill proficiencies and a bonus language, which means he knows Seven languages total now. it’s wild. he also gets the very fun rule where if he rolls a 1 on attack rolls/ability checks/saving throws, he rolls a d6 and depending on the result based off the intrusive echo table, is either charmed, frightened, blinded, incapacitated, or has his speed halved, or gets to roll again. some fun flavoring on all the reasons why, but they all have to do with his curse and the many souls they’ve flowed through him and in bourreé over the years.

• my DM loves giving people soulsborne-ass titles and while his current name, Iziador, doesn’t have a matching title to it, his previous name (tentatively) does. he’s both Cazimir, The Destroyer of Peace and Cazimir, The Proclaimer of Peace. because that’s literally just what his name means. Cazimir fucks as a name

• unrelated specifically to him but also here’s the current rough draft of the map!

the various lines and dots on the islands are denoting things like mountain ranges, rivers, and population centers—still fiddling quite a bit and it’s far from done, but eventually we’re gonna use this as an in-gale, diegetic map for travel!

i plan on making it nice and fancy in the style of medieval european maps and adding depictions of the gods later as well—something similar to this.

alas time and energy, but i Will be going ham with it.

there is so much more. consumed with thoughts about this campaign and its characters. you don’t even know

#asks #ty for the ask! i will take. any excuse. i mean any excuse. to gush about this game i’m beyond excited for it

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yeah-yeah-beebiss-1 · 2 years

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early impressions from the first 2 hours or so of pokemon scarlet: an ambitious, would-be phenomenal game held back by being released way too early

graphics are dogshit as expected, still looks like a late PS2 game

performance is rough - a lot of random frame drops and choppy animations, pop-in is somehow worse than PLA; there were several early cutscenes in the school classroom where all your schoolmates were moving at like 6fps that were extremely distracting

-koraidon’s jumping physics are super fucked up; in general the game has strong Bethesda energy with weird clipping and frame drops and general jank (for example, the only buildings you can enter are stores, and by “enter” i mean “the camera zooms in on the door until the whole screen is taken up by the door texture which is then used as a background for the shop UI”)

speedrunners are going to have a blast breaking this game wide open, which is to say the general quality control is very poor

pokemon variety is enormous, i nearly had a full PC box by the 2 hour mark just grabbing one of everything i saw

i can already tell that difficulty/level balancing is going to be a concern - exp share is always on and there are a lot of opportunities for experience, the only way you’ll be able to get through the game without being grotesquely overleveled for two of the three story paths is to box your whole team after completing one and starting over with low-level critters

overworld/catching mechanics don’t feel as polished as PLA’s; overworld catching is gone, there’s no reticule for aiming pokeballs to ambush wild pokemon, camera controls aren’t as flexible

you can set destination markers on the map, but they only show up on the minimap - playing this after finishing xenoblade 3 (which lets you see the markers in the world and even toggle guide paths) just makes me feel like it’s going to be a substantial learning curve for people not used to/fond of open-world games

terastallizing doesn’t feel like as much of a game breaker as dynamax or mega evolution

the gym leader implementation of terastallizing is boring as hell - rather than changing their ace to something that’ll counter whatever you brought to counter the gym type, they use it to change a pokemon that isn’t their gym type to match their gym type (the bug-type gym leader, for example, has a teddiursa that she terastallizes into bug type)

the soundtrack varies from respectable to absolutely amazing from what i’ve heard so far, the wild pokemon battle theme is dynamic based on area and the team star and tera raid battle themes go way harder than they have any right to - it’ll be interesting to see exactly how much influence toby fox had over the soundtrack, because some of these tracks definitely have his vibes all over them

in all fairness, i’m playing a leaked dump of a retail cartridge so there’s the possibility of a day-one patch fixing some of these issues, but the lack of polish runs so deep that i don’t think a single patch could address it

overall, i’m still having a decent time with the game because the pokemon formula is inherently pretty watertight and the exploration is pretty fun, but the game just feels blatantly unfinished so i couldn’t in good conscience recommend people drop $60 on it

i have a feeling there’s going to be more than a few instances of people getting buyer’s remorse and unloading their copies for cheap by early december, so i’d strongly recommend just waiting for that to happen so you can get it secondhand for $40-45

#pokemon spoilers #not really but i figure someone's gonna get mad if i don't tag it as such

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youllallriseintheink · 9 months

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A Road Further, Chapter 2: A Champion's Trials

A Road Further is the story of the Paldea trio going on various adventures as life goes on for them after the events of Violet.

Sorry this took so long, everyone! I accidentally wrote two chapters for Nemona (I thought I could stuff more into one chapter than I managed to) instead of one. The next chapter of hers will be released tomorrow after I fix it up.

I hope you all enjoy this!

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Nemona woke to the sound of blinds being pulled back and a sudden light falling on her.

“Time to get up, mi hija,” came Geeta’s voice

Nemona blearily opened her eyes. Geeta was already dressed in another of her suits- grey this time- and looked alert and alive. This didn’t strike Nemona as surprising until she turned to the alarm clock and saw that it was 5:30 AM.

Wow, how does she do it? Nemona wondered as she rolled out of bed.

“You have fifteen minutes to shower. After that, we’ll get you styled for the day and discuss your team options over breakfast,” Geeta explained.

Not much later, Geeta was braiding Nemona’s hair into a tight, low braid and explaining the day ahead.

“The first round consists of eight battles, starting at nine and ending at seven.”

“With a one-hour time limit for each, industry standard?”

“Yes. And your battle today is against Leon, scheduled for 1 pm,” Geeta explained, twisting the ponytail elastic around the braid.

Nemona took a look in the mirror. She liked what she saw- she looked so mature and professional, as Geeta’s protégé should.

“This morning we’ll find you something suitable to wear and prepare your team. Let’s go.”

Geeta waited patiently as Nemona sorted through her pc boxes at the hotel’s restaurant table. If only Geeta had told her about this before, she would have prepared by now. But her feelings of failure subsided as she went through the array of creatures she’d trained over the past two treasure hunts and scribbled down the names of any particularly good candidates that crossed her sight.

Nemona looked up to Geeta. “Alright! I’ve got a list of eight candidates for my ace, listed from best to least best. First is pawmot. What do you think?”

Geeta shook her head, the gentle smile still on her face. “A Pokémon from the pikachu family is a bit underwhelming, don’t you think?”

Nemona’s enthusiasm was slightly dampened. “Well, it knows two signature moves, but pawmi is really common… Okay. How’s about lycanrock?”

Geeta shook her head again. “Same problem as the last.”

“Okay, how’s about Skeledirge? It’s big and cool-looking.”

“A starter Pokémon doesn’t seem right for a champion.”

“But… Blue and Kukui use a starter Pokémon. Leon uses two. What makes this different?”

Geeta sighed. “The leagues of the other regions already have good reputations, but the Paldea league has a lot of damage to repair on its own. Everything we do must be perfect. That is why I adopted the image I have, and I expect you to adopt a fitting image as well. Understood?”

“Yes! Absolutely! So, what do you think my ace should be? I’ll go with whatever you say!”

“Very well. Let me see your pc box.”

Nemona handed Geeta her rotom phone. Geeta took her time looking through each box, seemingly quite impressed with Nemona’s work.

“Well, ceruledge would be a good choice,” Geeta said finally, putting the phone down on the table. “It’s strong, noble-looking and native to Paldea. And we don’t have a dark-type specialist in the Paldea league yet or a dark specialist champion anywhere. You could use lokix and borrow my kingambit, and we’ll use shards to turn ceruledge’s tera type to dark. How does that sound?”

Nemona smiled awkwardly. “Well.. okay. The thing is, I haven’t used either of those. Like, at all. They aren’t very well-leveled. And I’ve never really used any dark-type, and...” Nemona trailed off.

Just then, a text from Penny appeared. Nemona snatched up the phone, smiling awkwardly. Nemona loved Penny, but if any of her friends would be saying something La Primera wouldn't approve of, it would be her.

Geeta waited for her to finish.

“And... maybe I should use something I’m more familar with?”

“Sure. Let me see that list of yours.”

Nemona looked down at the list and was hit by a sudden feeling that Geeta wouldn’t like any of her choices. She stuffed it back in her pocket. “Actually, it’s fine."

“Good. And don’t worry about their level. I brought rare candy. For now, let’s worry about your outfit and their movesets. Ready to go?”

"You bet."

Geeta got up and Nemona followed her. As they went, Nemona checked the text.

Hey. Don't let Geeta step on you too much today, it read. Here's what some of her employees say about her. Don't become one of them.

It was followed by a screenshot that Nemona didn't have the time or honestly the care to read. It made sense that Penny didn't like Geeta- she didn't like any authority figures. And she didn't value the Paldea league like Nemona did.

Their next stop was the Lillycove Department Store to figure out her new champion costume. Geeta led her straight to a locally-owned clothing store that did custom designs. It wouldn’t have stood out to most, but Nemona recognized it instantly. This was where Wallace got all his costumes made. This really was the full champion treatment! Following behind Geeta, Nemona looked to the colourful outfits on the racks, searching for inspiration. Not that she hadn’t designed about six different champion outfits for herself in her head, but she needed to choose between them somehow!

“Hello,” Geeta said to the shopkeeper, a grey-haired woman who appeared to be in her sixties. “We’re here to order an outfit for an upcoming champion.”

The woman smiled. “Excellent. Age? Measurements? Gender? Do you have a general idea of what you would like it to look like?”

“It’s this one right here,” Geeta replied, gesturing to Nemona. “You’ll have to take her measurements. She’s a dark-type user, so I’m looking for something solid black. A floor-legnth dress, perhaps, with a jacket in a secondary colour of some sort and black accents. Do you have any suggestions for the second colour?”

The shopkeeper looked Nemona over. “Hmm... I’d say something dark mauve, to contrast her eyes."

Geeta looked to Nemona and examined her as though dressing her in her head. “Yes, I can see that. Well, let’s get the measurements done.”

Geeta put a hand around Nemona’s back and guided her to the back room, where Nemona was made to strip for measurements. It struck her that she hadn’t spoken once since getting there. But it was okay. La Primera knew best. She was sure of it.

As it turned out, because Geeta was looking for something so generic, they had something very similar to it on hand. Geeta got her to try it on. The dress, which was so long it dragged on the floor, said “funeral.” The purple suit jacket said “boardroom.” It wasn’t the friendly, energetic image Nemona had dreamed of having as champion, but if this really was wrong, La Primera would notice, and if she didn’t, well, then this was the image a Paldean champion needed and Nemona would learn to like it.

“Hmm... something about this just isn’t right,” Geeta mused, looking Nemona over.

Finally! Nemona thought, lighting up.

Geeta reached out and tugged a bit of Nemona’s bangs out of the ponytail elastic, letting it fall over one of her eyes. “There. A dark-type user should have a mysterious touch. Later we’ll get you a half-mask instead, but we’re short on time. Now, let’s go figure things out with your team.” With that, they left.

Soon, the two were heading to the arena. Geeta was right about them being short on time- it was eleven, which meant that she had two hours at best to make the connection with her new team, work out their movesets, and get on stage. Geeta led her to the practice fields behind the stadium and took a seat on the bleachers.

“There you are,” Geeta said, handing Nemona her kingambit’s pokéball, three labeled bags of rare candy and a thermos of soup laced with dark tera shards. “Now do your thing.”

Nemona had tried battling with every Pokémon type under the sun, and she loved most of them. It wasn’t that she didn’t like dark types, but, well, yeah, she didn’t like dark types. Poison types turned into total sweeties once they trusted you to respect their boundaries, most ghost types were goofballs that just looked scary, but dark types... once you broke through their aloofness, you were left with creatures whose sense of playfulness was always a bit sadistic and whose reaction to a new person was “how do I stay away” or “how do I take advantage.” And their battle tactics felt like cheating.

But for the Paldea League, she could do this.

Nemona took a deep breath and started rummaging through her bag for the pokéballs containing ceruledge and lokix. She found them and released the trio. The lokix and kingambit glared at her briefly before respectively hopping and hair-gliding off to do their own thing as cerulege stood by and watched them.

“Wait,” Nemona called, trying not to sound desperate. The two creatures turned back to her. Just forget their type, she told herself, maybe it'll be like Arven's mabosstif or Clavel's meowscarada. “Us four are going to be a team the next few days, alright guys? We’re going to win the champion tournament together. Are you with me?”

The two returned to her side, which she took as a yes.

“Alright!” Nemona said, bolder now, “First thing’s first, we gotta get you guys up to the typical level of champion Pokémon, so eat up!” She handed out the bags of rare candy, each of which had been labelled with the Pokémon's name. To the cerulege, she also handed the thermos of dark shard soup. The cerulege observed it coolly, as though suspicious.

“To change your Tera type,” she explained.

Not without hesitation, it drank the soup. Nemona could swear she saw the light in its eyes lessen as it drank. Would it be crafty and aloof like its teammates now? If only it was that easy for humans.

“Alright. Now, why don’t you show me what you’ve got so I can come up with movesets that play to your strengths. You two!” she pointed to the kingambit and cerulege, “Show me what you’ve got!”

The two blade-users lined up about fifteen feet apart on the field. Cerulege’s fiery blades shot out from its hands, and kingambit finally stood up from its throne and drew its own blades. Nemona blinked and they were jousting.

Nemona whipped out her notebook and furiously jotted down notes. Cerulege seemed to have decent speed- more speed than kingambit anyhow- but kingambit was taking physical hits like they were nothing. They both seemed pretty good in physical attack.

Cerulege ran a few steps back and hit kingambit with a flamethrower. It wasn’t a very impressive flamethrower, but it knocked the kingambit to the ground, seemingly dealing a lot of damage. Nemona took a mental note not to send kingambit out against special attackers and to replace flamethrower with a physical fire move.

Enraged, the kingambit stood up again and delivered a sucker punch to cerulege. It then called upon lokix and they took turns kicking it while it was down- a move Nemona knew as “beat up.” Finally, kingambit flung its held item- a metal plate- at cerulege, knocking it out cold.

Nemona cringed. Maybe she could do away with those moves- they weren’t very versatile anyhow. It suddenly occurred to her that lokix was also a physical attacker. What if Leon used a physical wall? Dark-type moves were full of tricks. Maybe they had a trick for this. She could work with this. She had to.

It felt like no time at all before Geeta informed Nemona that she had five minutes left to choose movesets before they had to move into the stadium. They entered the changing room and Geeta began touching up her outfit and coaching her on her presentation while Nemona watched the broadcast screen.

Leon strode into the arena with his charizard flying overhead a few feet behind him. He took his place, struck his signature pose, and let his charizard fly over him, making his cape and long purple hair flow in the wind. The crowd went wild.

As Nemona watched the screen from the changing room, Geeta gave Nemona’s jacket a final tug. “Best of luck,” she said. Nemona nodded and stepped out.

#pokemon #penny #champion geeta #nemona #my fanfiction #a road further

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