Adhoc vote count started by ReverendSwing on Jul 9, 2022 at 2:48 PM, finished with 51 posts and 15 votes.
[X] Plan Continued Wingull Bullying
-[X] Have Marigold improve the accuracy of her Thunder Shock by attempting to snipe wingull out of the air. Encourage her to use her magnetic sense to bolster her aim by track the wingull's movement.
-[X] If some of the wingull take a dive at Marigold, have her switch between dodging and hiding in her fluff until she gets accustomed with using either tactic at will.
-[X] Try to combine the times she turtles up with using Charge to increase her chance of paralyzing the wingul on contact.
-[X] The main focus is setting groundwork for long term improving Marigold's precision and use of her magnetic sense, but it won't it hurt if it'll get her thunder shock and defensive habits in better shape for the battle training.
[X][Training] Marigold has gotten some experience dealing with flying opponents, but you should also work with her on attacking ground-bound opponents, as well as how to dodge opponents on the ground instead of tank a blow. Use this opportunity to see how well her Takedown performs. Alternate between Takedown and working on her ability to shift between defense mode and mobility/charge-up mode. Training her out of it entirely is a waste of a valuable tactic that she can use even as a Flaffy (somewhat).
[X] Plan Versatility & Mobility
-[X] Focus on preparing for the battle training by rounding out Marigold's practice a little and becoming ready for anything.
-[X] (Half-)Day ONE: Carefully try Take Down. We've just had lunch and been resting most of the day, so it seems like a good time to try out a potentially exhausting and difficult move. Let's go into the forest and see if we can find some slow-moving or at least ground-based pokemon to use it on: maybe low-hanging Pineco, Hoppip (sounds like they're staying on the ground because of strong winds), or that Normal-type that ran off earlier. If any of them start a proper fight, we can throw in a little dodge practice as well, but focus should be on offense. If it seems like too much for Marigold, we can ease off and practice Tackle instead – it's not as powerful, but it could be a good way to get started with physical-type moves. And when you only have one pokemon, those are good to have in case of type disadvantages.
-[X] Day TWO: Test out those wool-brushing techniques we read about by giving Marigold a thorough brushing in the morning and then going to practice defense against some water-type pokemon. Avoid the Staryu cliff. Set up Electric Terrain, start a battle with Thundershock, then focus on improving the mobility issue we had last time. Dodge special attacks (Water Gun or Bubble Beam, probably), turtle against physical attacks, and occasionally pop out of turtle as quickly as possible to fire back a Thundershock; this should help her get practice rapidly switching between modes.
-[X] Day THREE: Marigold has been working pretty hard and deserves a break. Let's ask Melati and Yasigi for advice on a fun and low-effort training activity. What's the Trainer/Pokemon equivalent of a father/son game of catch? Then after lunch, we can give Marigold a brushing and go challenge a Staryu! We can ask Yasigi for help finding an isolated one, or chasing off any that try to interrupt. In the actual battle, we can use the strategy we practiced yesterday, but less focus on defense. Maybe even throw in a couple Tackles or a Take Down, depending on how Day One went. Afterwards, plenty of rest for Marigold before Melati's mystery guest arrives for battle training.
[X][Training] Plan Basics and Cool Glasses: -[X]Marigoald still has trouble alterning between her defensive and evasive stances. Rectify it by practicing it with Yasigi, then in combat. -[X]Learn to aim Thundershock better while at it. -[X]You got Sunglasses! Now it's time for Marigold to control her light and maybe learn Flash. Have her increase then decrease her output electric output in her tail, until she has enough control then ask Nekeh if he can help with the timing of Flash -[X]Don't forget to battle after a breakthrough and at the end of the day against wild first stage pokemon weak to the electrick type. First stage normal type works too.
Right, seems like we're not going to get anything else, so we'll make do - a little less votes than I'd have wanted, but there's enough of a lead here for continued birb bulli that I guess it's fine. Looks like you're going to carry on traumatising the local avian wildlife !
Also, I won't put the vote up right now since the thread is still in downtime mode, but here's your shortlist for character pics in case you want to think about it ahead :
Number 1, nerdy soft boi
Number 2, gloomy soft boi
Number 3, nature photography major soft boi
Number 4, 'I'm too trendy to be a soft boi I swear'
(Real talk, I was going to turn this one down but it actually gets much funnier when you realise that this is a 21-year old, 1m65-tops guy desperately trying to change his image so he looks older)
Number 5, overly fluffy soft boi
Number 6, just-vibin' soft boi
And obviously the current one, though I can't imagine it'll stay, most of these are heaps better honestly.
No ETA on when the chapter'll drop, as I said life's been pretty unpredictable these days - I'll let you guys know if a proper serious delay or something pops up !
Wait, that's you? Damn, I need to pay more attention to authors instead of just devouring stories.
Edit: Also, I'm leaning 2 or 6. At a stretch, they could even be the same person, just with varying amounts of Mareep Cuddles static electricity at time of photograph.
Eh no worries, happens to me all the time - in this thread alone I failed to recognise @TempestK as the author of some stuff I've read - twice. Wasn't expecting anyone in here to have read StF too, but I'm always happy to see some people still remember it despite, you know, last having updated it three months ago (actually closer to four now, which, you know, ouch).
As to the actual reason I was making this post - just a heads up, should have mentioned it sooner, but seeing as 5 seems to have some traction I'd be happy if someone could find me a better version of it. The one in the thread is 250x250, and that's kind of sad. More seriously, I couldn't find the source anywhere except some random quiz on 'are you a soft boy', so if I could at least get where it's from (if it is from anything) that'd help !
As to the actual reason I was making this post - just a heads up, should have mentioned it sooner, but seeing as 5 seems to have some traction I'd be happy if someone could find me a better version of it. The one in the thread is 250x250, and that's kind of sad. More seriously, I couldn't find the source anywhere except some random quiz on 'are you a soft boy', so if I could at least get where it's from (if it is from anything) that'd help !
A/N: I realise I've never mentioned this before, but any geography I describe is always based on the game maps for the topography and the real world places they're inspired by for the flora and overall character — so if you ever have trouble visualising a place, or you're the kind of person who prefers having a visual aide rather than a worded one, just look up the corresponding real world places. For example, Route 32 as a whole was inspired by the Ise Shima National Park, and Silverwing Village by the fishing town of Toba in Mie prefecture, while your current training spot would be more like the beaches in the vicinity of Owase or Kihoku.
This might be absolutely uninteresting to most people, but it really helps me dive into the scenes when I write them so I figured some of you might be into that. Do tell me if location references is something you'd like me to include as a given in updates ! Honestly if this were Kalos or Galar I'd have force-fed them down your throats — as a French expat, it was a given holidays were for driving back to the motherland, so I've seen a fair few chunks of the country and it might as well serve a purpose. Having to make do with pictures and google maps as far as Japan goes is definitely harder, if a nice excuse to learn new stuff.
Righto, on with the update :
[X] Plan Continued Wingull Bullying -[X] Have Marigold improve the accuracy of her Thunder Shock by attempting to snipe wingull out of the air. Encourage her to use her magnetic sense to bolster her aim by track the wingull's movement. -[X] If some of the wingull take a dive at Marigold, have her switch between dodging and hiding in her fluff until she gets accustomed with using either tactic at will. -[X] Try to combine the times she turtles up with using Charge to increase her chance of paralyzing the wingul on contact. -[X] The main focus is setting groundwork for long term improving Marigold's precision and use of her magnetic sense, but it won't it hurt if it'll get her thunder shock and defensive habits in better shape for the battle training.
Having absorbed your lunch at record pace — this more active lifestyle is really giving you an appreciation for a solid meal — you finally get up, and after a couple of satisfying stretches to get the remaining soreness in your muscles out of your system, call on Marigold in order to begin your training.
It's easy enough to explain to her what you want — in the end, it's just a fairly natural extension of what you'd been having her do already, working on Thundershock to ensure she can actually hit those in proper battles. Her success rate so far's still a little too lacking to be reliably used in battle, after all.
You hit a bit of a snag trying to explain to her you want her to rely on her magnetic sense for locating her targets, but a quick demonstration with rocks much like your earlier training gets the idea through.
The real struggle comes with trying to get her to understand that you'd like her to work on switching between dodging on tanking, since as far as she's concerned she's already doing that. You think you were getting through to her, until Yasigi takes pity on you and intervenes. You have no clue what she communicated, but Marigold now seems confident she knows what you want and honestly you kind of wonder if Yasigi isn't smarter than you sometimes, so you'll trust her on that.
You can't help but notice she waited to make sure you would have managed it on your own before intervening to save you some time — like pokemon, like mistress, huh ?
Anyhow, what mattered here was that you'd conveyed what you wanted, and Marigold was free to begin.
Although you'd been ready to start this off on autopilot, you quickly realised that the Wingull around here were definitely a little stronger — probably as a consequence of being less secluded and therefore sheltered from other mons.
It wasn't anything particularly threatening — they were still young, and still had a quadruple weakness to Marigold's primary move — but your sheep wasn't quite experienced enough fighting you were comfortable leaving her to her own devices.
The first minor snag your plan hits on is that these Wingull actually know Water Gun (which frankly is the bare minimum you'd expect — you're still surprised those from the other beach didn't), meaning that it's not quite as easy as 'throw Thundershock at them, and if it misses let them get into close quarters range and try again'. Thankfully, there's a reason pokemon like the Wingull line or Cramorant prefer attacks with a larger area-of-effect.
Water Gun's strength comes from its capacity to inflict continuous damage, rather than its raw hitting power. In order to truly do some damage, the stream has to be maintained on the target for at least a few seconds. And for flying pokemon that use an active flight method as opposed to passive hovering or floating, keeping their attack aimed at a target is actually quite difficult.
Unless they're exceptionally good, this means that a Wingull's most reliable way to deal damage with Water Gun is one of two options : using the move while diving straight at their target, or finding a perch/landing from where to fire it.
And in both cases, well, they're sitting ducks for Marigold's Thundershocks.
Oh, don't misunderstand — her current accuracy being what it is, she still has to work for it, but what could have been a genuine problem considering her current level of skill is instead a nice additional difficulty, which also gets her to work on her dodging a bit. It does mean she doesn't really get to work on the whole switching between turtling and dodging thing, though, since none of these gulls are dumb enough to enter close quarters range with an Electric-type that knows what they're doing.
So the rest of your day goes, interspersed with a few breaks for Marigold to take a breather — not so much to recover energy as it is to make sure damage from those Water Guns doesn't stack up too much. She's actually doing a fairly good job dodging them, or at least making sure not to stay in the line of fire for too long, and you're happy to see she's even trying to fire off those Thundershocks while on the move, though her accuracy remains very much lacking with those.
You call it a day, scrounge up a quick dinner and go to sleep with a weird buzzing sense of excitement.
Trying to figure out what it is actually keeps you up for a fair little while, until you almost burst out laughing at the realisation.
You're bursting at the seams with anticipation.
Of all your rivals on the youth circuit, you were always the one with the least interest in becoming a Battler. Dahlia lived and breathed the stuff, Duncan was determined to hack it, and even Rocco wasn't scared to admit it was his one true favourite thing, so long as Flying-types were involved. There was a reason why you were the only one among them to specifically want to become a Trainer rather than a Battler of some kind — you dreamed first and foremost of the lifestyle, of trekking around what terra incognita there remained to this world and facing its dangers and wonders.
But that doesn't mean you didn't have the same fire burning within you.
In a handful of days, you're going to be battling again, and you're surprised to see just how excited you are about this simple fact.
Back in your Training School days, you'd… trailed off over the years. Part of it had been the arrival and subsequent rise of Rocco, and then Duncan's improvement, but the simple truth of it was that the drive to succeed was just gone.
In your final year, what could have been your grand send-off, you finished outside the podium of the regular season for the Johto circuit in your age group for the first time ever. In the summer invitational that followed the regular season, you finished behind someone other than Dahlia, Rocco or Duncan for the first time ever in an official Johto competition. And in the capstone of the season, the interregional tournament between Kanto and Johto's best youths as Tohjo Falls… you failed to qualify for the quarter finals for the first time ever, netting a top 16 finish that wasn't even worth sorting out your exact finishing position — only first to eighth got ranked in order.
There were excuses you were happy to give yourself and others at the time.
You'd come into your style and composure very early, and it wasn't all that surprising that others would catch up. What with your university applications, you'd had to devote more time and effort than most of your direct competitors to exams, revisions and overall more scholarly pursuits than they had in order to meet the criteria.
There were the excuses you wouldn't have dared acknowledged aloud, too.
The strain your pokemon training-centric lifestyle put on your relationships at home, as your parents increasingly ran out of hope that this was a phase you'd get through. Teenagehood in all its glory, too, as puberty was well done hitting seemingly everyone but you, and your complex about your appearance and demeanour was born — you weren't blind to the way you were growing less decisive on the field, more hesitant, how you got more conscious of being under the crowd's gaze. Of how your newfound insecurities put a strain in your relationship with Dahlia, too, who'd been the first to sense you failing to conjure the enthusiasm for competition you'd both shared and been more than straightforward about how much less interesting she found this new you.
Actually, in hindsight it's fairly obvious that she was trying to help you in her own way, trying to light up a fire under your ass and snap you out of it, but, well, you were teenagers. She was clumsy in her handling of it, you were hasty in your judgment and suddenly the tournaments that had been the opportunity for friendly meetups turned into increasingly tense affairs as you and Dahlia refused to talk, Duncan was still an ass and Rocco couldn't read the room to save his life.
No, it's not really a surprise that your head was elsewhere at the time.
But there's one reason to that flame guttering out that you can only now understand, with the benefit of hindsight and having finally touched your dream for the first time.
The youth circuit really wasn't what you wanted, because it was always rentals. Never your own pokemon, never your own training, never your own choice of moves or fighting style.
Just battling, with all the great things about being a trainer removed.
You aren't bursting at the seams with excitement because you were finally going to be battling again.
You're about to whoop for joy at the thought of finally battling using your own pokemon.
It's a very odd feeling to have coursing through your veins — old and familiar, the kind you've felt a dozen times over before each tournament in your younger days, but with just enough of a twist, just enough of a new zest to it that it still feels fresh.
Surprisingly enough, you fall asleep with a smile on your face.
The following day begins with what's becoming a familiar pattern by now : wake up, help out with breakfast, do some basic chores, hike a little to find a small stream where you can do some basic laundry, dishwashing and ablutions (unfortunately, it's too small for anything other than splashing yourself and wiping down with a towel — you really didn't appreciate having an actual bathing spot at your previous training spot enough), interrupted by a somewhat awkward encounter with a couple of hikers who were clearly looking for an out-of-the-way spot to… Well, you won't make any assumptions, but you think you understand a bit better what Melati meant by 'a couple of locals' occasionally coming here.
At least you were mostly done drying up when they arrived — that would have definitely been more awkward — and you have a feeling it's not the first time they've run into trainers roughing it on an escapade of theirs, as they bounce back pretty quick and head off a little deeper into the woods once you tell them your base camp is on the beach.
Your other interruption, while you're washing up the cooking pot is a group of young Hoppip brought along by a strong draft. The playful little cotton weeds must have been caught by surprise and been carried away before they could link up. In a fit of fancy, you help them bunch up so they can stop drifting away, and in return they nuzzle you for a bit until the Skiploom that was presumably watching over them catches up.
After eyeing you suspiciously and determining you weren't a threat, it thanks you with a grateful nod before dragging its charges back into the forest.
The small interaction put you in a good mood, and so it's with no little amount of enthusiasm that you return to camp and begin day two of your training.
The morning goes very much as the previous day went, Marigold getting to work mostly on her accuracy, dodging and somewhat her speed of execution — but the difference comes when you return to training after breaking for lunch.
You have her fight a couple more Wingull, and then when the time comes to pick a new opponent… You stall, because suddenly there are no more of the Water/Flying types to be found. You almost panic for a moment, thinking that maybe something big is coming and scared them all away, until the embarrassing truth dawns upon you.
You are the big threat that scared them away.
Your previous training spot was a secluded cove where the Wingull had their nests — it made sense that they would stick there, especially considering they mostly felt younger and weaker and were therefore less likely to venture out.
These birds, though, are perfectly free to look for another beach if the danger makes hanging out in their usual spot not worth it. And so they did.
A little flustered, you set out to look for new potential targets. You could try and take on some of the Water-types hanging out by the shore, but you're not sure you could integrate that defensive training as well as you'd like against something that remains in the water, and there aren't enough Krabby milling around to make it worthwhile. The Staryu could fit the bill, but they're definitely the toughest things around and the fact they're camouflaged on the sand means you'd rather not risk failing to spot a cluster and getting ganged up on. Plus, they'd also avoid getting close if they could help it, so that would still mess with your planned defensive training.
So really, there's only one obvious solution. Bidding Marigold to come along, you leave the beach and instead double back to the forest, casting your eyes about until you find what you were looking for.
There's a short break in the trees, less of a clearing and more of a hole in the canopy where a tree fell off some time ago, where a pair of Pidgey have landed, ostensibly too busy trying to dig out something from the rotting trunk with their beaks to have noticed your arrival yet. You'd have made do with some Spearow,, but Pidgey are actually better for your purposes — although both first-stage bird mons travel around in flocks, Pidgey tend to have more diffuse communities, remaining within call distance without crowding each other, meaning if Marigold is quick enough about it you could get a fairly steady stream of opponents without risking being crowded.
Spearow on the other hand not only tend to stick much closer overall, meaning that most of the time you'll either be dealing with either a lone one or at least a dozen, with very little room for an in-between, but they're also much more often supervised by a Fearow, even if it's from a distance, and that's one tangle you perhaps might not want to risk getting into.
Quietly, you explain to Marigold you want her to do the same thing she was doing earlier with the Pidgey, and after a bit of awkward miming as you're trying not to raise your voice to make sure the Pidgey don't fly away, she's off.
The poor first Pidgey never really gets a chance to test her defensive training, as their failure to notice her sneaking up on them means she has all the time in the world to adjust that first Thundershock and completely nail it down. Its compatriot, however, is quick on the draw and immediately dives for her with an offended squawk, but she had the time to see it coming and rolls out of the way, taking the opportunity to set up her Terrain now that there's no more need for stealth.
This Pidgey is obviously a little too young and inexperienced to do a hard banking after being avoided, and instead makes the mistake of landing at the end of his dive — meaning Marigold has the time to get off another Thundershock, and even if this more rushed one only clips its target, it's still enough of an opening for her to run up and Tackle it down.
Short work, but that was only the opener. You hear in the distance a smatter of angry squawks from these two's flockmates, and now the actual worthwhile training begins.
It ends up being a fair bit more gruelling work than the Wingull were, on account of most Pidgey not actually being instantly knocked out by a single Thundershock unless Marigold really has the time and space to wallop them proper, but it's definitively more productive, even if your sheep is knackered by the time you both retire, before you draw the attention of something bigger.
The good news is that you've finally had some opportunities to get her to work on switching between 'dodge-mode' and 'turtle-mode'. Unlike Wingull, which tend to use their long flat wings and narrow build to switch between controlled gliding and sudden swooping, Pidgey are built for more agility, at the expense of pure speed, and this actually proves a far more interesting test for Marigold, who has a shorter time window for her dodges now that her opponents can actually adjust their diving angle better and can recover quicker from a miss.
She gets caught out a few times early on before figuring out how to adjust (with your help), but once she does you can see a definite (if still small) improvement in her dodge timing, and most importantly in her dodge recovery. Previously, she'd been rather tranquil in getting back up and alert after a roll or bounce out of the way of an incoming attack, but now that her opponents can actually recover quickly she's forced to actually consider how to flow from a dodge into a ready stance before she's actually done dodging.
The turtling only really comes out a few times, when two or three Pidgey attempt to gang up on her, and there's clearly still some work to do. From her obvious frustration, you gather that she clearly gets what you're asking of her when it comes to flowing between tanking and dodging depending on the situation, but it's obvious she's really fighting her instincts and it's messing with what she's trying to do something fierce.
That said, the last instance of a pair of Pidgey attacking simultaneously gives you a glimmer of hope, as after weakening one with a glancing Thundershock but not knocking it out, she's forced to weather both their assaults until the weakened one gets caught by her Static and veers out of control, twitching.
Before it has the time to recover, she instantly reacts to the incoming second bird, bouncing out of the way in a move it clearly hadn't expected after a few easy hits, forcing it to land awkwardly, and she unbalances it with a Tackle before nailing it down with another Thundershock — and easily finishing off the following one-on-one with an already half-done opponent.
It's exactly what you'd been hoping of her, and even though her sort-of surprised look makes it clear she didn't entirely expect to do that, it's beginning to take shape.
The following day is virtually identical, especially since some of the braver, stupider and more adventurous Wingull went back to your cove thinking it was safe now and you take the opportunity to warm Marigold up with some free target practice.
You follow-up with some more Pidgey training, but you actually only hit out lone stragglers — it seems the local flock has moved away a bit after the drubbing Marigold gave them yesterday. You briefly consider setting her against a pair of Hoppip you see floating by, but you don't think she'd get much out of that and also they're adorable so instead you set out to look for appropriate target. You avoid a small colony of Weedle and Kakuna as there've been reports of Beedrill in the area, and instead stumble upon some local Spearow. Not ideal, as you'd noted the day before, but you haven't heard nor seen any sign of a local Fearow, and yesterday actually gave you a lot of reassurances regarding Marigold's toughness.
You knew she was a pretty thing, but absorbing all the information in that wool-care manual Arabella forced on you did help you confirm that her wool was indeed of exceptional quality, and beyond promising a great pair of mittens next shedding season this more importantly confirms your suspicion that it's better at holding in its electrical charge. And since the more charge it holds, the more it fluffs up, this means it also becomes an even bigger bulwark against attacks — and presumably the more it insulates against heat and cold, though you've not had any opportunity to check that yet.
Considering how many blows she took in turtling mode when pitted against two or three Pidgey at the same time, you're less worried of her ending up against five Spearow or something. It'd be a gruelling fight, yes, but definitely one she could weather.
More importantly, yesterday she showed you that she could switch between the turtling and her normal fighting style in order to exploit a sudden one-on-one situation, but now you want to see if she can't switch back-and-forth in a situation where she remains at a numerical disadvantage.
You try to explain that to her as best you can, but it seems to have gone a little beyond her, to be honest.
So you just throw her off the deep end and hope she works it out.
Look, you weren't getting through to her and you know she'll be fine — she just won't necessarily do what you'd like her to, which would be annoying but not the end of the world.
You can still feel Yasigi's judgemental… stare ? Seismic sense ? Can someone use their seismic sense judgmentally, and could you even tell if they did ? You have no idea but you feel like if that's a thing she's doing it.
It'll be easier to get her to adjust things if she gets it wrong once and you can point out exactly what part you want her to work on.
After finally finding a sufficiently small group of Spearow (six is still on or two more than you'd have preferred, but still not too much of a worry considering how young they are), you set her off on them.
As expected by now, she knocks a first one out instantly thanks to a surprise Thundershock (she's not exactly the sneakiest, but she's getting a lot of mileage out of the whole 'innocent little baby sheep' thing), and weakens a second one with a hastier shot that you're fairly sure was actually a lucky miss that completely sailed by its actual intended target, and being forced on the defensive.
The battle from then on is a slow drag, and one that unfortunately showcases what you were worried about : she does grow more ruthless at taking advantage of those instants where static paralysis sets in and leaves her in very brief one-on-ones, but she still doesn't really break out of her turtling if there's ever more than one opponent directly threatening her. You are heartened by the fact that with the number advantage actually putting her under threat for the first time since you've started her on battling, she actually starts occasionally pulling out a Tackle or two even from her defensive posture to clear out some space, break their rhythm and chip away at her opponents.
She does defeat them all eventually, but it was clearly less fluid and more laborious than you'd hoped for — even if it's about what you'd expected.
With that in mind, your feedback actually gets through to her this time, as she finally understands what you mean with the benefit of experience.
Somewhere underground, a snake decides to let you off this time.
That said, understanding what you want and actually putting it in action are two very different things.
Marigold's go at a second Spearow flock numbering eight this time leaves her considerably more banged up than the first one, as she hasn't really quite got that fluid transition quite down yet and often gets beaned by one of the birds before she has the time to go on the counter.
At your behest, though, she begins relying more on her magnetic sense to estimate when she had the time peek out, and slowly but surely she eventually emerges with a scrappy win. It's not exactly graceful, it's not always successful but by the end you're confident that she's beginning to be able to create and seize opportunities to attack when on the defensive by suddenly going mobile.
It's also unfortunately a sign that you should draw things to a close, as in her condition you don't want risking her against another flock — and besides she's worked plenty hard for today.
The fact that on the way back a snake bursts out of the ground and begins fussing over her comforts you in that decision.
Marigold's Thundershock has gotten more accurate. She still has to usually sacrifice at least one of speed, power or precision, but the amount of flyers you've pitted her against have definitely improved her aim — and perhaps most importantly, she's starting to learn how to use her magnetic sense in a predictive manner in order to aim.
Marigold has started understanding how and when she might want to switch between being mobile on defence and turtling up. She's not exactly got it down pat, but she'll try — and she's at least definitely more comfortable attempting it in a one-on-one, although you worry it might be something else entirely if she's pitted against a single opponent that can apply the same sort of pressure that several weaker pokemon can.
Having actually eaten up some damage and gotten well into the double digits in terms of number of scraps, you can tell Marigold's grown more comfortable with the idea of battling and the concept of taking damage.
Due to your constant avian bullying in her formative stage, she has also acquired a critical disdain for birds, especially the Wingull line. She'll never want to go through the humiliation of letting herself be beaten by one, but she will tend to drastically underestimate them until shown sufficient counter-examples.
Today's the fateful day, though after Melati notices your foot tapping the ground in tense excitement she just laughs and tells you not to expect anyone until lunch, which puts a little damper on your enthusiasm.
Not for long, though. After your round of chores, you quickly get Marigold to once again clean out what little of the beach's Wingull population had returned. In the middle of that, you're interrupted by a beep from your Gear announcing the arrival of the delivery Pelipper carrying your Black Glasses, which you're… Nope, it's been like twenty years since the first time you saw a Pelipper de-gorge a parcel and it's still gross.
Still, you tip the carrier bird even as it throws you an evil eye when it notices exactly what you're doing to its brethren in the area (and as you discretely try to urge Marigold not to attack it), and it flies off without making any fuss.
Away in the surf, you can see Melati laughing herself sore when you pulled a relieved face at that.
In the absence of news, and lacking anything really better to do, you get your own set of reps in as Marigold suns herself lazily next to you — you've been doing a little every day anyway, but you try to work your nerves out by putting yourself through the wringer.
You're actually mostly successful — you're more the kind that needs to think their way out of their nerves, but in this case the fact there's definitely more excitement than anxiety means this is sufficient for your means.
In the end, your battling-instructor-to-be arrives while you're in the middle of lunch.
And you have to give it to Melati — when she says she'll get you someone more qualified than her, she pulls through.
There's no way you couldn't have recognised the woman enthusiastically making her way towards you, lugging around a large pack full of weaponry and actual plate armour like it doesn't weigh a thing.
The weapons and armour alone would have been a dead giveaway. The giant, flaming red braid hanging down her back too. The face you've seen not only dozens and dozens of times on the screen, but also plastered on Dahlia and Rocco's walls, and that of many another teenage battle enthusiast (and horny teenage boy, you imagine).
Giving you a big silly wave and a bright grin as she makes a beeline for your cooking pot is Rosalie Carafa, the Armsmistress.
Four times winner of the Silver Conference, winner of the Indigo Conference and the Vertress Conference, three times quarter-finalist to the Driftveil Pokemon World Tournament, and one of the all-round most respected Trainers of the region. One of the only Named Trainers in the area to be a Battle specialist and regular on the circuit.
Of course, that brings to mind other things, too. The good : the thing which first drove her to fame, the fact she teaches her pokemon to fight herself — literally. She specialises in pokemon with natural or additional weapons analogous to human ones, and literally teaches them to wield those, regularly sparring with them.
People die every year figuring they can take a grown pokemon in a fight, and it's because of maniacs like her and Chuck making people think they were anything other than complete freaks of nature talent and skill-wise.
There's the less good too. The well-documented mafioso connections, the rumoured Rocket links from early in her career, her numerous infractions on the circuit (spitting in an opponent's face, collapsing the ground under a defeated opponent's feet so they'd kneel in front of her, throwing her doubles partner out of the ring to disqualify him under the grounds that he was dragging her down…) and more infamously out of the circuit (the scandal when it was revealed she owned a sizeable stake in a Pachinko chain which also offered on-site bookmaking for pro Battling, her youth criminal record in Altomare including a stint in juvie for two separate cases of assault and battery, and most recently her one-year suspension from the professional circuit for running illegal cage matches in Goldenrod).
(It's worth clarifying that cage matches, in poke-battling, aren't as bad as they might sound — for pokemon at least. Their 'gimmick' is that the trainers are locked in with the pokemon, and while they can't be outright targeted… well if they don't dodge a stray shot quick enough or clear out of an AOE, that's fair game. They're mostly illegal because insurance is a nightmare and the League forbids them in order not to ruin their hard work establishing battling as child-friendly, socially-acceptable entertainment, as opposed to its far more lethal roots cage matches call back to.)
Honestly, were she anyone else she'd have been barred from competition for life at this point, but it's hard to understate just how iconic Rosalie is, especially in Johto.
Part of it is just a confluence of serendipitous events : she burst onto the scene in the middle of a lull on the pro-battling scene, where old names which had dominated for decades were stepping down but their successors were yet to step up, she was the first of non Leader/E4 Trainers to embrace the mass media era, keeping full control of her image rights and making judicious (and lucrative) use of them, Johto looking for a champion against Kanto dominance on the joint battling circuit after Gold took a break to focus on field work for Elm, she was very attractive and knew how to play it without relying on it or being vulgar, she refused to ever join a team even in the midst of the increasing professionalisation and corporatisation of the sport…
And part of it is just what she is. Melati has made it clear to you that Named Trainers are only so much of an act — but they still partly are one, and with a deeper understanding of the subject you feel even more comfortable saying that no one understands showmanship like this woman. Her original iconic gimmick of the Scarlet Knight was stellar, her reinvention as the Armsmistress was just inspired after the whole 'knight' bit was somewhat ruined by her extra-sportive troubles, and she can just play a crowd like no one else. On-camera, she never breaks (po)kayfabe, and worst of all she has the monstrous skill in battling to back it all up.
In Alto Mare, she is a legend. She is literally the city-state's single most famous child, bottom line. She has statues, she gets invited to government investitures, she has streets and gymnasiums named after her.
Basically, she is a very complex and polarising figure, only one aspect of which everyone can agree on : she is one of the best competitive battlers on the old continent, end of.
And that's the tutor Melati arranged for you.
Name: Rosalie Carafa Profession: Professional Trainer, Competitive Battler (currently serving out suspension)
Relationship: Melati asked her to give you some pointers for battling. Doesn't really have an opinion of you yet, but thinks you look kinda meek. Still, happy to greet another wannabe-Trainer into the fold — as far as she's concerned, if Melati's bothered to drag her out for you, then you'll be one of them eventually.
Moniker: The Armsmistress, The Scarlet Knight (formerly) Theme: En Garde! — Pokemon who wield or have natural weapons similar to those wielded by humans in medieval times, and trained specifically first and foremost in the use of said weapons. The pokemon must have been trained by herself in the use of said weapons. Entrance theme for competitive matches: Ante Up - M.O.P., Seven Seas of Rhye - Queen (formerly)
Appearance: Larger than life in more than the storybook way. Easily clearing six feet, broad-shouldered and well-muscled, with expansive and communicative body language, the loud-booming laugh symptomatic of a voice that always carries far even when it's trying to be quiet, you sort of wonder where the character begins and the person ends — and whether, there was ever much of a difference, or if it all just blended over time. Either way, she looks exactly the part of what she portrays : a mighty warrior straight out of another time, full of life and boisterous cheer.
In person, she eschews her traditional 'stage getup', so to say, of the many variants on her plate armour (gotta keep switching things around to justify making new merch), in favour of simple workout clothes, although it seems the famous giant braid she styles her red hair in is in fact a permanent fixture — which really brings out her green eyes, as you're sure many a lonely teenage boy staring at her merch has realised.
Bio: Even if you'd not been a fan — and you don't really know anyone who attended Trainer School in the same sort of age bracket as you and wasn't — you'd probably at least know the basics.
Born to a working-class family in Alto Mare, to a father with a rap sheet longer than the queue for Erika's Gym doing petty minion work for various bigger fishes, she showcased an aptitude for roughhousing very young her father encouraged by signing her up for boxing — which she was a natural at, but didn't particularly enjoy, before a quirk of fate put her on her way.
Due to a peculiarity of the way Alto Mare's school districts are cut (which is commonly understood as 'due to bribery by some shady type on her father's behalf for years of loyal services'), she ended up falling in the district for one of the best and nicest public establishments in Alto Mare. Just enough to give her a little up in life, except that this school, being very old and somewhat traditional, had a traditional fencing club — the pastime of choice of the Alto Mare elite. Rosalie obviously didn't enter it — not when there was a functional boxing club — but a couple of years later, when they entered 'nationals', said club, already possessing very few members, was struck by injuries and found itself with only three members able to compete.
Needing a fourth in order to enter the team brackets, they cast their net about schools with the other sport clubs for top athletes wishing to fill in the spot, and Rosalie did it so she could ditch classes for a couple of days (her own words). Seeing as she was coming along anyway, they gave her a crash course on the rules and entered her for the singles rounds, and very quickly came to an embarrassing realisation : even with her lacking experience, she was obviously supremely talented. Against all expectations (and to the dam of most of the crowd and participants, who clearly saw her as one not 'of the proper sort'), she ended up blitzing to victory in the singles competition despite being both inexperienced and the youngest competitor, earning her choice of top prize, between a sizeable bundle of cash and a sword containing a nascent baby Honedge. To the surprise of many, she picked the Honedge, and this is where things get a bit spotty.
It's known her choice of prize caused a scene with her father, who'd wanted her to pick the cash, then she disappears off the grid for a little while, reappears for a stint in juvie after exerting her right to self-defence a little too enthusiastically, leaves, returns to juvie again for a very odd and unclear story about a four-way streetfight, until she finally returns to 'normal' life at Alto Mare's Training School, sponsored by a Trainer with a well-known past as an enforcer for a local mafioso and fees mysteriously payed in full despite being arguably too steep for her family.
Graduates with honours, if a disciplinary record, then goes off the grid for a few years, only to return at the All-Alto Mare Invitational as the beneficiary of a wildcard to make her debut as the Scarlet Knight. Storms to victory there and leaves at the assault of Johto proper the following year. Terrorises the circuit in her first year, until people start catching up with her techniques, but still qualifies for the Silver Conference, where she finishes in the top 16 for her first participation — she'll never score lower in eleven participations. The next year, she'll finish second of the regular circuit and the Conference both, and after that will never actually compete for ranking in the regular circuit again.
From that point onwards, she will exclusively seek qualification for her Conference of choice by Gym Badges, which she'll only ever fail to obtain once (a year she goaded Blue into going all-out against her and not issuing her a badge unless she beat him — her best result in four challenges was a 3-0 defeat), and only competed in events she felt like attending, switching to a much more identifiable Trainer lifestyle, one where competitive Battling took much less of a spot.
Rumours abound that the reason of this switch away from regular competition was a breakdown in relations with her dodgier backers in Alto Mare, but you wouldn't know whether that's true — the general consensus either way is that she looks much happier as a wandering Trainer.
Some years after her debut, she was sort of forced to change her stage persona from the Scarlet Knight to the less virtuous Armsmistress, on account of her sulfurous past exploits somewhat ruining the valiant champion image she'd first played on. Alongside that change towards a more rough-and-tumble warrior image, she also switched to a more abrasive and fight-happy on-stage persona, which most people agree is much more in keeping with her actual character.
A few months back, she was banned from the professional circuit for a year after being found to organise and take part in cage matches over in Goldenrod, where it's since come out she was an underground champion too.
Known Pokemon: Alongside her already rare Aegislash starter, is the only trainer with a professional license on League record to own a Kleavour, and one of the only ones to own a wildborn Kabutops. It pays to have connections, you guess, but considering some of the richest people on the entire planet have tried and failed to pry the secrets of either of those's locations… That can't explain it all. Also known to have a Marowak, Escavalier and Decidueye.
And true to her reputation, before you really have the time to pickup your jaw from the floor, her greeting is exuberant and her momentum impossible not get caught in.
"Hey, you must be the newbie ! I'm Rosalie, though I guess you knew that. What's cooking ? Literally, I'm starving here. Bugsy didn't appreciate my little leaving prank so I spent the night outrunning Beedrill until I reached Union Cave."
… She outran Beedrill ? With that pack ? The one full of armour and weaponry whose weight you can't even begin to imagine ? Not to mention crossed Union Cave and made it all the way here in… what, a few hours, assuming she stopped to sleep ?
You know what ? You're just going to roll with it.
"Ah— yeah, I did. Know you, that is. I mean," you begin, cursing yourself for stumbling over your words, until you just resolve to power through the embarrassment anyway. "Ergh, nevermind. I'm Joan. Food is pasta with whatever Yero's catch of the day is, which today means various shells and some oysters. Melati's over there, you can see Pep and Jura — she'll be along soon."
"Alla vongole, just like home !" she cheers, before taking a look into the pot and wincing. "Okay, maybe not just like home. Here, watch and learn."
She immediately seizes control of the pot, and draws from a compartment of her ridiculously voluminous pack a half-bottle of white wine, a bundle of dried parsley and… a bottle of cream ? Some shallots ? Where does she even find the space to fit all that ? Why would she try and find the space to fit that ?
"And yeah, saw old Scaley from some way away. Bit hard to miss as soon as you can get an eye on the sea," she tells you as she begins her salvaging operations of your rather straightforward recipe. "Anyway, you look kind of familiar. Have I seen you before ?"
"I think I would remember if I'd ever met you," you tell her absolutely truthfully.
"Hmm. You a beginner beginner ?"
"Newbie trainer, yes. I did run the youth rental circuits though."
"Ah !" she snaps her fingers suddenly, startling you a little. "Didn't I see you hanging out with little Rocco ?"
"Little Rocco ?"
Oh when/if you meet him you are absolutely lording this over him.
"Yeah, I keep an eye out for all the promising kids from Alto Mare. Needed a little personal touch from yours truly to get him on the Johto circuit after all. He doesn't like me very much though, and his parents get all pissy if I try to visit, something about being a bad influence, but I gotta watch for team Alto Mare. Also, just the appearance of being in contact with him pisses off a lot of people back home something fierce, and that's funny enough in its own right. Politics, you know the drill."
No, you don't, and something tells you that you really don't want to know, because you are fairly certain some of the politics involved are not strictly above-board.
You know, now that you think about it, Rocco was always suspiciously blasé about breaking the law or being caught doing so.
"Well, yeah, Rocco was a friend, though we've been out of touch for a little while."
"Shame, he could use more friends that don't think with their… Well, I'm sure if you know you know. Anyway," she moves on, taking the time to dip her finger in the improved sauce and making a small noise of approval. "Much better. And while it simmers and we wait for Melati, might as well get started. Take that top off, sheep boy."
What.
"I-I'm sorry ?"
"C'mon, you heard me. Don't worry, I'm not going to eat you alive," she groaned after noticing you were still frozen. "Santi Lati, this is going to be like when they forced me to go through sexual harassment training again. I just want to see your musculature."
You still have a lot (and you mean a lot) of questions, quite a few being along the lines of 'then why would you phrase it like that ?' but a sixth sense you've been inwardly calling the 'Melati is doing a Melati thing' sense is pinging and you realise this is probably a trainer thing.
Actually, considering how central her own training is to her pokemons' and to her way of battling, by Trainer standards (which you are beginning to realise are much looser than common sense might imply, something that secretly delights you even as you try to pretend otherwise) you think you can sort of see the logic she's operating under. Something something can't train a body right if you can't train your own, something like that ?
So you comply, feeling only mildly mortified at stripping your top off in front of a fair amount of boys of your generation's first ever crush.
Damn, Melati's shamelessness conditioning is really working, huh ?
"Hmm, well, I was a little worried 'cause you looked kinda scrawny, but I'm glad to see you take care of yourself. That's a generic build, though. Don't have anything of your own ?"
You don't even get the time to answer before she barrels along, and you realise that wasn't a question.
"Still, could be much worse. Melati wouldn't tolerate a slob, but she's kind of a slacker so she forgets most people who nap as much as her don't get her abs. Those bruises though… Been in a scrap recently ?"
Oh wait, that was actually a question — one you don't get a chance to answer for your own, as Melati chooses that moment to make her return.
"Power naps are a completely legitimate part of a healthy routine. Just because a brute like you can't appreciate them doesn't diminish their efficiency."
"Yeah, yeah, and I'm sure it's got nothing to do with your need to warm up those cold, cold bitchy insides of yours. Nice seeing you, thanks for ruining my holiday."
"Please, you were with Bugsy. You should thank me for giving you a reason to visit."
"Exactly ! He kept trying to come up with excuses to get me to leave, it was hilarious ! And you ruined it !"
"You'll get over it. And yeah, he wrestled some of Cassiopea's get. Fresh Stone evolutions."
"No shit ? Nice. Won any of it ?"
"… No," you confess, feeling a little inexplicably ashamed. It's not like you'd expect anyone to out-wrestle a Nidoking… but, well, if you had, it would have probably been her. Or, you know, someone like Bruno or Chuck. "Almost cheesed the first one, but then they were onto what I was doing."
To your surprise, you're rewarded by a solid slap on your back that almost sends you bowling over into the cooking pot.
"Then you've taught them something new, and that's as good as anything in my books," she guffaws before tossing some sand onto your campfire. "Anyway, grub's ready so let's get digging, there'll be plenty of time to talk shop afterwards."
The food actually smells divine, and you're forced to confess that it's definitely much better than what you were going to make by a country mile as you attack it with gusto. Still not enough of a reason to convince you to waste pack space on what seems like half a deli store.
Everyone is quiet as you get some much needed nourishment in, but it seems that your guest can only physically remain quiet for so long.
"Damn, that hits the spot. Maybe it was time to ditch Azalea. Think I should head to Cianwood next to get some sunning and some seafood in ? Or maybe the Whirl Islands, actually ? Some fun fights there, and it's further away from home."
"I don't care in the slightest," comes Melati's droll reply, staying true to herself.
You can't help but feel there's something off to the banter between these two. There's obvious respect between them, but it just lacks that… element of fondness you'd expect from this kind of ribbing. You wouldn't call it performative, or them trying to mask a dislike of each other in particular, but…
If you had to put your finger on it, you'd say that Rosalie is like that with anyone she's on vaguely good terms with, and Melati just plays along because she doesn't specifically mind. It's an odd sort of mood, but for all its hints of artificiality you have to admit it does a good job of injecting some cheer and dynamism into what could have been (and sort of still is in your case) a mostly awkward situation.
Well, Rosalie is famous for her ability to play to her crowd.
"Yeah, that tracks. Something to think about. I'll check to see if there's anyone funny to bug over there. Either way, we're fed and the day's still fresh, so come on Joan, it's time to put your dukes up !"
"What ?"
Everything seems to go by in a whirl as one second you're cleaning up your plate of your second serving and the next you and Marigold are dragged bodily further down the beach by an excited redhead.
"So," she begins, finally releasing your arm once you're far enough from camp. "Seeing as you've got a background, I don't need to give you the basics. She's obviously young, but that Mareep battled before ?"
"… Yes, but only wild pokemon," you concede, knowing from experience it's never quite the same.
"Hmm. Well, I won't kick in all gears blazing until I'm sure she's keeping up then. Here's how we're going to this."
She brings out a pokeball, which to your surprise doesn't release one of her iconic team members but instead a young, shifty-looking Pawniard (and no you're not profiling because it's a Dark-type, this little guy looks sketchy as hell).
"Seeing as I have free time and I was due for a bit of variety, I've decided to put Ronnie here on trial for the seventh spot on my team. I've had him for two months now, so even though unless I'm mistaken he's got a bit of a headstart on your Mareep they should still be in the same rough wheelhouse if you haven't been slacking. We'll do a standard one on one, Mel will call out the winner — let's not go to knock-out, there's no real point. This is so I can get a feel for your style and habits. That work ?"
Ooh, there's that excitement again.
You'll have to thank Melati properly afterwards. Regardless of how an older, more worldly and better-informed you feels about your opponent of the day now that you're more aware of the kind of person she is and the sort of company she's been known to keep compared to the raw admiration of your youth…
Boy, does it get your blood pumping.
"Sure thing."
[] [Battle Plan] - [] Come up with a plan for the battle here. As a 1v1 where you know all pokemon involved, there aren't too many unknown variables here, we still in tutorial mode. If you need a refresher on how battling works in this quest, there's a summary in the mechanics post in the Informational threadmarks. - [] Any gaps in the plan will be taken over by in-character Joan. Joan has a record as a battler, even if not a professional one, meaning he knows what he's doing, but he does have predilections and blind spots. - [] For reminder, the Soft Boi trainer archetype 'usually prefer to be on the defensive and react to whatever's going on, but push too hard and they will snap'. Due to your character choices, Joan is more assertive and less passive than this standard, but in exchange has a lower tolerance for taunts and a shorter fuse.
And now for another vote. As I mentioned when closing the vote last time around, you're now finally voting on your appearance pic so I can retire that kind of really boring Kuroko one you currently have. In case you haven't seen what the contenders are, here :
Also, I won't put the vote up right now since the thread is still in downtime mode, but here's your shortlist for character pics in case you want to think about it ahead :
Number 1, nerdy soft boi
Number 2, gloomy soft boi
Number 3, nature photography major soft boi
Number 4, 'I'm too trendy to be a soft boi I swear'
(Real talk, I was going to turn this one down but it actually gets much funnier when you realise that this is a 21-year old, 1m65-tops guy desperately trying to change his image so he looks older)
Number 5, overly fluffy soft boi
Number 6, just-vibin' soft boi
And obviously the current one, though I can't imagine it'll stay, most of these are heaps better honestly.
No ETA on when the chapter'll drop, as I said life's been pretty unpredictable these days - I'll let you guys know if a proper serious delay or something pops up !
Approval voting for this one, you can vote for as many as you like. I am willing to hear out arguments that 6 is just 2 after taking a chill pill, and may reuse that if either of those win, but for this vote's purposes they're different.
***
A/N: Right, that's done. Took a little longer than it should have because I caught covid like two days after closing out that vote, but thankfully it wasn't too bad an episode. Some of this was written in kind of a daze as a result, so sorry if it's a little confused at times. Summer begins and I'll be seeing a lot of people over the next couple of months so expect slow-ish updates, but on the bright side the ink is on the dotted line so I can happily say that a lot of the stuff that was eating up at my time is officially over — I'll be furthering my studies next year after a break of a couple of years. Don't quite know what that will mean for my writing time, but we'll tackle that when we get there and in the meantime I don't need to work on more portfolio and interview stuff that eats into my creative juices.
Turns out when you bully a single species continuously in an open location, they just decide to move. Melati was going to call you out on looking for stronger opponents, but she realised what was happening and just let you learn an additional lesson on top instead. Anyhow, I hope you like Rosalie. She was originally one of your mentor choices, until I realised you'd need a battle tutorial either way no matter who you chose so I figured I'd have her make a guest appearance no matter who you ended up with. She's partly inspired by all these star athletes you admire when you're a kid and later realise can be really dodgy, but still not in the personal awful way that makes you actually regret ever liking them — she herself isn't what you'd call a bad person by any mean, but she very much comes from a mesh of social backgrounds that's at ease cohabitating with organised crime and where you're clearly expected not to dig too deep into what your friend/neighbour/boss does when the doors are closed.
Her name is a nudge both to Ronaldinho (who hasn't kept out of legal trouble for a year since his retirement) and the Carafa noble Italian family, most famous for contributing a slew of notoriously corrupt cardinals and church officials in the 16th century, most notably Pope Paul IV — and in particular a nod to Fra Gregorio Carafa, who was a Grandmaster to the Order of Saint John in Malta and by most accounts a fairly stand-up and well-respected guy, unlike a lot of his namesakes and his great-uncle Paul IV (which might have to do with having been given to the Order of Saint John at three months old). The knighthood link, those Sicilian and Calabrese roots for the mafia vibe (Malta fell under the Kingdom of Sicily at the time), the notorious familial corruption… It felt perfect ! Much like locations, I put entirely too much thought into character names and the little easter eggs I can hide within them, so if that's the kind of thing you enjoy keep an eye out for them !
VOTING REMINDER:
[][Battle Plan] Plan vote [][Joan pic vote] Approval vote, vote for all the pics you're fine with - designate them by "Number 1" or "Number 2"
There is an EIGHT HOUR MORATORIUM, in order to give people time to actually read through this.
