Something that starts with R like Reina or Raiden works.
Raiden does keep the R pattern, the hypothetical MGS theming, and references her unusual skill with electricity.

To circle back to Trails, there's a couple more feminine R names to use there, although none are necessarily related to Excadril. "Ries" would be funny to me specifically because I'd have voted to name Nacli Kevin, though.

Moving away from the R motif, Cecile and Dorothy are good names for an unwitting agent of chaos. Vivi and Shirley are good names for more WITTING ones. Noel is a bit of a stretch but I don't know any named tank drivers in Trails, just one very good IFV driver. And of course Tita is a little girl with a rocket launcher who just keeps upgrading from there in firepower.
 
I vote we reserve Dorothy as a nickname in case we ever catch a Spinda :V

ALSO, looking through Excadrill's old move tutor moves, it could apparently learn Magnet Rise back in the day lol
 
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Well, everyone this was a good fight. We all did our best and we should be proud how close that was. Let us shake hands as we hope the next pokemon vote gets as chaotic as this
 
I do want to keep the R theme going for her name, raiden would be funny, tho this is a honkai refrence to me
 
I do want to keep the R theme going for her name, raiden would be funny, tho this is a honkai refrence to me
And I want to keep the Trails theme (Roland counts. Barely). So unless we can compromise on Ries, Rixia, or Risette we're going to have another war on our hands.

There might be some minor characters to pick from for other R's, but these are the top three.
 
I'll approval vote for Ries at least.

Although we do have some time to recover here. Nicknames are at Bond 2 and while I'll bet plot gets us to Bond 1 this week we'll still need to find time after.
 
If we do keep the R theme going, I wonder if people in-quest or Mary herself will comment on it, it's kind of why I want to go for it.

"Mary, why do all your Pokémon's nicknames start with R?"
"I just think it's a neat letter.."

I enjoy very small quirks and bits of character like that.
 
I'll approval vote for Ries at least.

Although we do have some time to recover here. Nicknames are at Bond 2 and while I'll bet plot gets us to Bond 1 this week we'll still need to find time after.

Nicknames are Bond 1 actually, as per the informational post on Pokémon Strength and Bonds.

Below is how Pokemon Strength and Bond will work for the quest.


Pokemon Strength



Pokemon Strenght POKE XP
0-Badge Level 1000
1-Badge 2000
2-Badge 4000
3-Badge 6000
4-Badge 8000
5-Badge 10000
6-Badge 12000
7-Badge 14000
8-Badge 20000
Conference Groups 23000
Conference Finalist 26000
Elite Four 30000
Champion 40000

Pokemon Bonds


Pokemon Bond Bond Points
Bond 0 Default
Bond 1 Nicknames/Link 0/2
Bond 2 Friendship Evo Baby Stage 0/3
Bond 3 +10% PK XP Boost 0/5
Bond 4 Friendship Evo 2 Stage 0/7
Bond 5 Friendship Evo 3 Stage 0/10
Bond 6 Mega Evolution Access 0/12
Bond 7 ??? 0/15

Moves Mastery

Mastering a Move will unlock that Moves Next Tier
Example Moves Water Gun Water Pulse Surf Hydro Pump
Move Expertise Simple (MXP Needed) Advanced Complex Fiendish
Beginner 0/1 0/3 0/5 0/8
Intermediate 0/2 0/5 0/7 0/10
Skilled 0/4 0/7 0/10 0/12
Mastered 0/5 0/9 0/12 0/15
 
And I want to keep the Trails theme (Roland counts. Barely). So unless we can compromise on Ries, Rixia, or Risette we're going to have another war on our hands.

There might be some minor characters to pick from for other R's, but these are the top three.
I can't believe I forgot secret Best Girl Rosine. I must pay the price.

Luckily I can pay in memes.

If we do keep the R theme going, I wonder if people in-quest or Mary herself will comment on it, it's kind of why I want to go for it.

"Mary, why do all your Pokémon's nicknames start with R?"
"I just think it's a neat letter.."

I enjoy very small quirks and bits of character like that.


Once I thought of it, I couldn't possibly use a different R. Don't tell Mariana what that one is for.
 
It would've been a lot easier if there was a character that used claws as a weapon, but I don't think there is.
Rixia does a little? Her primary weapon is the really huge sword, but her offhand gauntlet has... chain-claws? Her craft where she drags in enemies before slashing at them uses them.

Plus it keeps the R's alive.
 
Well now that I'm not on the verge of a heart attack, back to deep dives.

...The origins of the Great Collapse are unknown. The Geomantic Church claims that it was divine punishment for the greed and tyranny of the First Paldean Empire. Historical records from that era remain fragmented at best. What is clear is that by the time of the Dark Ages, Mesagoza's population had gone down from its peak during the Classical Imperial Era of 500,000 people to just 20,000. The Dark Age successor state of the Mesagozan Kingdom would spend much of its existence concerned with repairing the old capital. By the time of Emperor Rodrigo's Reunification, the city was at 100,000—
My favorite part about taking study actions is the exposition dump, obviously.

So, the Great Collapse. As Arvis has clarified elsewhere, this "the Great Collapse" was the dissolution of the First Paldean Empire, which is as far as I can tell is a loose equivalence (in time and effect) of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in real world history. Arvis has also clarified that there was a different, more apocalyptic Collapse around 3000 years ago (placing it in the equivalent of the end of Real Earth Europe's Bronze Age). This is kind of splitting up a single Trails event - also called the Great Collapse - into two, presumably to fit in more history. In Zemuria, the Great Collapse that ended around 1200 years prior to the games was the end of super-advanced, Atlantis-like civilizations that dominated the continent, and the eventual genesis of the modern nations after a lengthy period known as the Middle Ages or Dark Ages, depending on translator. The Great Collapse discussed here seems to be primarily the latter, so I'll focus on that rather than going over any bullshit about Goddess-given miracles misused by mankind, or any Ultimate Weapons that may or may not have been fired in Bronze Age conflicts.

Anyway more pertinently, Heimdallr (Mesagoza's Trails equivalent) was a depopulated shithole because a big evil dragon moved in. Specifically, the Dark Dragon Zoro-Agruga, which rather than a "real" dragon was an extraplanar being manifested because of curse bullshit and vaguely related to the Holy Beast--...........Christ am I gonna have to explain Holy Beasts? Short version: immortal demigods associated with the goddess-granted super artifacts known as Sept-Terrions and who always seem to turn out to be someone or something unexpected.

Suffice to say I think the relevant point here is that I bet there was some nasty Legendary Pokémon or another camping in Mesagoza during the Great Collapse or early Dark Ages, possibly one or more of the Treasures of Ruin, who were eventually evicted to restore the city. Zoro-Agruga was dispatched historically, for once, by an Erebonian Emperor not named Dreichels, although not without serious cost. The Mesagozan Kingdom here likely has a similarly interesting story in how the city was saved and restored, but of course, that never makes it into the textbooks.

…Aside from the Mesagozan Kingdom, there were other major successor states during the Dark Ages. The Arch Kingdom of Cascaraffa, the Principality of Artazon, the Principality of Marinedo and the Margraviate of Glaseado. Of them, all but the last would survive all the way to the Reunification wherein Emperor Rodrigo would bring them within the Imperial fold. Glaseado would collapse during the early Dark Ages following a failed invasion of the Andosin Highlands. At its height it reached from what is today Medali all the way to Levincia. Legends claimed that the last Margrave of Glaseado controlled two cursed blades that allowed him to control the deadly frost and storms of the mountain range—
And here we see the origins of the modern provinces and Great Houses of Paldea. Incidentally, it looks like the Cascaraffas are likely the oldest and most prestigious of the major noble houses, since their seat used to be an independent kingdom ("Arch Kingdom" - the only way a landlord can get more pretentious is to stick Arch onto the front of his title). This paragraph is also a much more pertinent shoutout to the Treasures of Ruin, which even Mariana ICly picks up on, with the obvious implication that the Margrave of Glaseado controlled (or was controlled by) Chien-Pao (which would also explain why it's sealed in the Andosin region as opposed to the game, where its shrine is way over in the west, in the mountainous region between Cortondo and the Cascaraffa-Asado-Marinada area). Glaseado outright collapsing explains somewhat why it's a different province in modern Paldea - "Glaseado-Montenevera", and ruled by a nicer and presumably more recently-minted noble family in the Montenixes.

Hm...the "cold steel" Treasure of Ruin is associated with Elise's homeland...yeah guys I don't think we're gonna be the ones catching Chien-Pao.

Also interesting that the Principality was Marinedo and the modern city is Porto Marinada. I assume they're related, anyway - and it's interesting that the language has shifted in the time when the Portugal equivalent is controlled by the Spain equivalent.

And also another somewhat of a divergence from Trails - Emperor Dreichels re-united an Erebonia that had been divided relatively recently by a succession crisis spiraling into civil war. Emperor Rodrigo was re-uniting the core of the First Paldean Empire that had been divided into various fiefdoms since its collapse. Something to think about.

You finish up the rest of the chapter: it goes on to say that the Andosin Khans had briefly unified to defeat the invasion at great cost. It wouldn't be until Rodrigo's time that the Highlands would recover militarily. That part you know about.
Also no details here because Mariana cleverly doesn't have to think about it and doesn't think it's interesting. I bet it is, though, and it's at least confirmation of why the Legendary Knife Cat is in the northeast.

You check the time. It's getting pretty late. You still have to feed and try to talk to Espurr for the day. You doubt it's gonna go anywhere but it's your responsibility to take care of her.

Sure enough, you're proven right when Espurr doesn't even bother talking to you telepathically. She scarfs down the food and water you brought her, ignoring your attempts at conversation and then immediately requesting to go back to her ball after she finished eating.

She's probably had it rough, no need to rush her.
I don't have interesting commentary here, I just want to appreciate Mariana being a responsible rehabilitator even if she's got zero training on how to deal with traumatized Pokémon.

It's the next day and you're treated to the sight of Leaf trying to be an actual teacher, giving lectures and all. After discussing the basics of battle studies, she started handing out papers to you and your classmates. Why does yours have a sticky note on it?

RR1 Performance: 4 Wins, 2 Losses, 2 Draws
Total Performance: 4 Wins, 2 Losses, 2 Draws
Feedback:
You're too easy to read except in a couple of circumstances (opponent too busy to look at you, opponent can't read people)
You're prone to panicking in general, decent at improvisation, decent at planning.
Dreepy's learnset is too limited, essentially two possible strategies. Struggles if opponent is faster or if opponent can outlast Dreepy.
Too harsh on yourself, you're fourth in the best class of an entire Academy.
You're good with Pokemon. Is the student with the best rapport to their Pokemon aside from Erika and Nemona.
Sticky Note:
Catch a usable second Pokemon sooner or later. Three Pokemon will be fine up to your 4th Badge.
That's…reasonable. Some of the criticism are ones you've had yourself but it's good for someone actually competent to put them into paper. You appreciate her mincing her words, even if it is just Leaf going easy on you.
You can do it, Leaf. You can maintain the bare minimum effort expected of a teacher.

Anyway, Leaf's feedback.

Mariana is predictably an open book. Our high CHRM doesn't translate into a poker face even a little, thanks to our tendency to panic. That's less relevant early in a Pokémon career when there's less information to be read, but it could be a problem going on if we don't address our emotional issues - remembering we're not just going to be battling for fun or glory in this quest.

The more direct callout of our panicking tendency is apt, as is our being too harsh on ourself. Mariana thinks Leaf is going easy on us here, but what she's not comprehending is that needless self-criticism literally makes us worse at battling than if we could bracket that self-loathing and not let it overwhelm our good sense. "Stop being so hard on yourself" isn't mollifying, it's actual tactical advice. Maybe Leaf can elaborate on that for our dense ass later.

Dreepy's learnset is limited yeah no shit Karen he learns four moves in the game before evolving. Honestly I think the play here is just to make him very good at the two strategies he can do and worry about diversity from other team members. Even Dragapult is a steamroller or strategic bomber, not a jack of all trades.

And it's good to know we're good with Pokémon and that Leaf appreciates that - we're getting on raw empathy and compassion what Erika's gotten out of a lifelong bond and Nemona's got out of Olympian team training.

And finally, "catch a new Pokémon" is something we've finally taken care of. Drilbur ain't going to be much less predictable than Dreepy, but sometimes the best strategy is grinding the enemy to dust. Adding Renne to our battle team through a few more Bond actions should be all we need through fourth badge, as Leaf suggests, especially as she's inherently someone who adds a ton of variety to our strategy.

"Can I eat some of the burnt food?" Ostia asks while waiting for you to prepare the cooking materials. First club meeting and it's been split by the instructor into six groups of three.

"No, Ostia. It's not good for you." Luckily enough you're in a group with Ostia. You bat their hand away from trying to eat some of the raw egg. C'mon Ostia, please work with me here.

"Why not? I say let the tyke have some. It's how I learned to cook." …You're also in a group with one other. You glare at the boy, he had long flowing gray hair, so long so as to drape over one of his eyes. Thankfully he's wearing a hairnet right now, all three of you are. His name is Arven and he's kind of a jerk. To you at least.

And now we meet another canon Scarlet/Violet character, possibly the only person at the Academy with a worse "parent" than Ostia (well okay Theodora and Manuel might have a claim too). Arven plays the role in S/V of "friend who sometimes fights you and sometimes fights by your side" as well as being an unintentional comedy duo with Nemona, two people who are utterly incapable of understanding what the hell the other is on about (he's not even into Pokémon battling. He's on the Humanities track). Explaining his entire deal would mean explaining the entire "Path of Legends" storyline from S/V, the story climax, and frankly a bunch of other stuff. The relevant point now is that this is a man who was quite literally raised by his dog and he is therefore not......socialized. Hence the jerkery.

And if he asks for help making sandwiches or medicine, for the love of Deer Dad, help him. Even if the "help" is something insane like beating up giant Pokémon - frankly, no need to wait around for Juliana for that one. He might not come up with the idea until further in the timeline, though, even if we do Bond up with him.

Also man Ostia really doesn't get enough food.

Arven's name comes from the scientific name for wild mint, Mentha arvensis. In Japanese he's named "Pepper", after "Peppermint", but presumably English-speakers would find that confusing.

The entire club was tasked for its first meeting to at first cook something exactly to the instructors specifications. And then to cook something unique while being based off of what was made earlier. Your team got tasked with making an omelet and you're gonna make a damn good one.
"It's not gonna burn, I forbid them from doing so. Even if I'm not used to eggs this small." Seeing creatures that weren't Pokemon for the first time was weird. You're not gonna dwell on that thought anymore.
So something that's been in Trails since Sky, and achieved its "modern" form in the second arc (Zero/Azure), is a fairly extensive cooking mechanic where you combine ingredients (which can be anything from storebought milk and salt to jelly made out of slime monsters) to a recipe, and the "quality" - Superb, Regular, "Peculiar", or Unique in CS - of the dish is randomly rolled based on the character who did the cooking, with every party member having different aptitudes for different dishes. It's a fun little bit of characterization, especially in Cold Steel where all your party members have a truly unique dish or two based on their particular tastes, like Jusis cooking a dish from his childhood or Alisa having a fancy cookie only she knows how to make. The idea of "cook to recipe, then try to make something unique" reminded me of the idea, so I decided to go on a tangent about it.

We also see, as we're about to get the punchline in a few seconds, that culture shock on eating Pokémon cuts both ways - the Andosin don't even have mundane animals, so all of their animal goods come from Pokémon period. Mary probably didn't know what a pigeon was before getting to Mesagoza (and is probably confused as to why they look so little like Pidgeys), let alone eaten cow beef or chicken eggs.

Actually maybe pigeons don't exist. I can see them being outcompeted by Route 1 Birds.

"Pokemon Eggs." You answer nonchalantly, not noticing that Ostia stopped bouncing in place.

"Y-you—you eat Pokemon, Ms. Mary…?" You turn to Ostia who seems like they're on the verge of crying. Oh no.

"Huh, right you're Andosin. …I've never tried feeding him Pokemon before…" You didn't catch the last part of whatever colorful commentary he provided. You're too busy trying to comfort Ostia who's actually starting to tear up.

"P-please don't eat Argy…Miss Mary…" Your heart breaks seeing them cry.

"She's not gonna eat Pokemon in front of you, tyke. Right?" You furiously nod at what Arven just said. It at least seems to slightly work as Ostia is only sniffling now.
"...I'm sorry Miss Mary. I know it's part of your culture. I didn't want to do an Erika. But I don't wanna see…" You hug them, assuring them that it's fine. You did want to introduce them to Andosin cuisine, but you'll just have to find alternative ingredients for now.
You know, I'm not sure if we tattled on Erika's little Sneering Imperialist moment or if she and Ostia have started talking enough about their mutual friendship with us that she confessed. I like to think they're bonding over "what the fuck is wrong with this girl we both immediately cared for".

Anyway, awkward culture shock moment, but I'm just gonna leave this here:



Also, Arven referring back to his main motivation: healing his dogparent. His only idea thus far has been feeding him different medicines, and I have to admit, there's certain Pokémon products I could see him trying now that we've inspired him. Hopefully he's responsible with this, or at least find a Protagonist to drag along if he decides to go hunting for Rhyhorn horn or something.

You're going through Leaf's feedback during breakfast this Saturday when you get an idea. You remember reading it from one of Dawn Berlitz's interviews. According to her, it was something Cynthia gave to her as advice. 'Aim up. If you're at 1-Badge, challenge a 2-Badger. If you're at 3, challenge someone with 4 or 5. If you're at 6, challenge someone with 7 or 8. A Journey is about the betterment of oneself through personal growth and the growth of your Pokemon.'
Good advice from Dawn overall (which explains why she spent several years grinding fights with the Pokémon fandom's collective Freudian nightmare) in that fighting stronger opponents makes you stronger. Especially in this system where we still get XP if we lose. And we're gonna lose a lot.

The hair is unmistakable and she's wearing her uniform. You aren't, having noticed that a lot of non-Academy trainers seem to resent students. She was battling alongside Mercury while Sunny was waiting by the benches cheering her on. Although she seems to be losing, the smile on her face tells you that she's having a fun time. She even takes losing way better than you—
We've gotten more explanation on this recently, but the continuing divide between "normal" trainers and "Academy" trainers in Paldea is interesting in that it's almost an extra dimension to the class conflict - as far as Pokémon trainers are concerned, born privileges are one thing, but getting special privileges at Pokémon battling because you got into a special school? Pay to win bullshit.

Enough. You need to focus! You'll catch up to her eventually. You have to.
.......why, though. Why do we "have to"?

I know we made our choice in votes, but where does this sense of obligation to do this specifically come from? Is it just a manifestation of our sense of obligation toward everything and everyone but ourselves? Where did that come from? These are my favorite read-and-find-out questions so far. I have theories, obviously, but this is what I want to see Mariana unpack from herself through this subplot.

Nothing exists other than you and your opponent.
I should start a tally for this. It can go next to the "Emperor Rodrigo namedrop" tally.

Their tips alongside Leaf's feedback has given you ideas for training Roland tomorrow. Even if one of them did suggest 'get vitamins' to you.
Vitamins have come up a few times so it's worth mentioning in one of these writeups that this is a reference to Pokémon game mechanics. I'm not going to do a full writeup on Effort Values but suffice to say that there's two ways to improve your Pokémon's base stats/per level stat growth. One is through battling Pokémon - specific Pokémon for specific stats. The other ways are buying (expensive in Pokédollars) vitams (one per each stat) or in some generations by doing Super Training (expensive in needing real world time and specific lategame resources). The nod to Vitamins here is that they're a way to legitimately make your Pokémon healthier and stronger as part of their training regimen, but gated behind having lots of spare money - say, being a noble or the heiress to a major consumer electronics manufacturer, or having some form of sponsorship to cover expenses like real athletes tend to.
If he can do it, then you don't have to worry about him being outsped for a while. The time limit only starts getting raised to 20 minutes at the 2nd Badge and above. It remains consistent until the 5th Badge where it's raised again to 30 minutes. And finally it caps out at an hour at 7th above, going all the way to the fights of Champion level trainers.
Time limits aren't a thing in the Pokémon games and I don't...remember if they're a thing in any of the adaptations I'm familiar with. They make sense as a logistical limit on official battles, and are a means of a match ending in a draw (which is much rarer in the games than this quest for obvious reasons).

This training vignette is also the diegetic explanation for Roland learning new moves by mastering old ones - in this case, he's spent so much time training his ability to temporarily boost his speed with a quick attack that he's worked out how to just put himself in an indefinite state of increased speed (Agility).
"You're so smart, Roland!" You praise him while grabbing onto him, rubbing your faces against each other. Roland croons in joy. The two of you finish up training for the day and head home.

Your heart feels a little lighter now than it was last week.
I do love our lazy little noodle and want good things for him. Hopefully he'll have a fun match with our new buddy in the next update.

Anyway I'm not gonna do task votes, as before, but I am gonna go over the bond point options for the week. I forget if I did that the first time but I ain't going back to that.

[] Roland: Despite pretending otherwise, he's smart enough to recognize words and letters. Time to teach your layabout how to read. With how he tried to run away, it's like teaching Timothee all over again. Improved Bond with Roland. 2/5 to Bond 3
NSA: Never Stop Adopting.

Pokémon literacy has come up a few times (most recently with Pawniard's description mentioning he already knows how). I guess it's relevant since most Pokémon are intelligent enough to understand language, and writing is useful for communicating to them. We also see some Pokémon like Wiggly communicating through written language themselves, which is potentially a hugely useful tool.

Espurr I'll cover in the next update since that was a pretty big deal.

[] Atticus: While shopping with Mela, she mentioned that she and Atticus had a mutual interest in Pokemon Fashion, fashion for Pokemon and clothing items made from Pokemon materials. You should ask Atticus about that. It'll give you an excuse to see how he's doing after the Round Robin too. Maybe you'll even find out what he's an apprentice of in the first place. Improved Bond with Atticus. 1/2 to Bond 1
Atticus being Atticus. I think the hint here - that we don't know what he's an apprentice of - may be implying that he's an apprentice ninja, rather than an apprentice weaver/tailor as I've been assuming. That's not really a thing in S/V, but random people turning out to be ninjas has definitely happened in Trails before (although not quite as often as turning out to be spies).

[] Jacinto: Jacinto was badly annihilated during the Round Robin. As Class President, you should probably check up on how he's doing. Hopefully he's doing okay. …Hopefully he doesn't rope you into a conversation about Politics. Improved Bond with Jacinto. 1/2 to Bond 1
I'm judging the thread for not hanging out with Jacinto more.

Also unsurprisingly Mariana doesn't care about class politics.

[] Theodora: Theodora seems exhausted, even more so than usual. With neither Elise nor Virgilia around, she's conscripted you to help make her feel better. How? Gossip. Halfway through you're wondering; How does she even know all this stuff!? Improved Bond with Theodora. 1/2 to Bond 1
Hmm...wonder what she's been up to to make her exhausted? Regardless of how she's playing her role, she's definitely moonlighting doing something. Did anyone else notice that she was tagging along with Elise to the Ruins in the social encounter on FE1 Tuesday?

[] Arven: Arven seems interested in your cooking knowledge, specifically how the Andosin culture cooks food for Pokemon. You could probably give him a couple of pointers. Even if he does remind you of a less tactful Erika. Improved Bond with Arven 1/2 to Bond 1
Oof. Can't argue though. Anyway, as stated, Arven has a very specific personal quest, and it involves feeding a Pokémon. He's also an in for plot later, so we don't exactly want to ignore him...even if he's probably lower priority than our Team and our Class.

[] Elise: An idle comment during a conversation has led to you being roped into helping her train her swordsmanship. You've never seen a practitioner of the Eight Leaves One Blade School before. So this should be a learning experience. Improved Bond with Elise. 0/3 to Bond 2
I'm going to get into some details later during Deergate, but I think this was the first official namedrop of the Eight Leaves One Blade school, an element that seems to have been imported directly from the Trails series. Essentially a school of magical katana swordsmanship developed in Fantasy Asia, it got imported to the Fantasy Western Europe setting thanks to its traveling master apprenticing a bunch of weebs, including at least one major character from each arc of the series so far - including Estelle Bright's father (and his former army subordinate, the villain of ToCS1), Arios MacLain (Crossbell's dollar store version of Cassius and rival/mentor/it's complicated to the Zero/Azure heroes) and of course, Rean Schwarzer (with his sister Elise supposedly picking up some principles for self-defense. This is never relevant). The fact that this fantasy kenjutsu, complete with causality-breaking super attacks, is still a thing pretty much directly in a Pokémon setting is very interesting to me.

Ostia and Erika we either did or there's not much interesting for me to contribute (other than poor Ostia deciding not to invite us out for food this week).

[] Nemona: The Yearly Trainer Circuit lasts from August until the end of May, the following Year. With June dedicated to the Yearly Conference. Winners of the Conference are granted the privilege of challenging the Elite Four and if they beat all of them, the Champion. This part usually takes place during July. This year's conference winner is challenging his first Elite Four member, Rika Cayena. You managed to catch Nemona watching it on the Living Room TV. Why don't you join her? Improved Bond with Nemona. 0/3 to Bond 2
We caught a later part of this Elite Four examination, but it's worth noting. In addition to explaining the schedule of what I'm gonna call the Summer Championship Series, it's our first namedrop of Rika, lesbian thirst trap extraordinaire and member of the Elite Four. A Ground-type specialist, her ace is Clodsire, marking her as a woman of impeccable taste. She's also responsible for administering the quiz portion of the Champion Assessment in the game, although that doesn't seem to be a thing here.

Even odds she's standing in for Claire Rieveldt as "sympathetic personal sidekick to the supervillain chancellor", imo.

Rika comes from "Paprika", and in every language she's named for some form of spicy pepper - Chili in Japanese (not to be confused with the Unova Gym Leader triplet who's named Chili in English) and, in Spanish, Cayena after the Spanish for Cayenne peppers, hence the last name here. Incidentally, one of the Great Houses in Trails of Cold Steel is the House Cayenne - there's probably not a relation here though, as all the Great Houses in Paldea seem to be named after their main holdings. Funny coincidence, though.
 
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I can't believe I forgot secret Best Girl Rosine. I must pay the price.

Luckily I can pay in memes.




Once I thought of it, I couldn't possibly use a different R. Don't tell Mariana what that one is for.

Ostia: "Mary, why do you like the letter R so much?"
Mariana: "…"
Erika: "Mary?"
Mariana, suddenly wearing a different uniform: "TO PROTECT THE WORLD FROM DEVASTATION-"
 
Ostia: "Mary, why do you like the letter R so much?"
Mariana: "…"
Erika: "Mary?"
Mariana, suddenly wearing a different uniform: "TO PROTECT THE WORLD FROM DEVASTATION-"
Clearly were a brainwashed sleeper agent of Team Rocket except instead or trying to restore the fascist version from the Quest history we're going to turn it into the queer icon joke version from the anime.
 
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