Trainer Thought Process (Protag Edition)


Was this just an excuse for me to post screencaps from the acacia/bump of chicken/ [GOTCHA!] MV? Probably.
My thought process for side stuff is… Where do my characterizations come from in like a vacuum.

Well, unfortunately, a lot of my brain tends to revolve around incredibly childish concepts like sprite fight music videos and anime fight battles where people get like cool swords and also DBZ is there but Pokémon isn’t about that, it’s about the Pokémon. Maybe the people sometimes. Sometimes I like making stuff for the people who I play as in the games because sometimes it’s a fun writing exercise to make things up and I guess this is RP. This is closed RP.
These are my trainer muses.


Red: literally just a mutation of collected red headcanons that were either made up or from other people’s red fanons that have branched into “whatever fits whatever I’m thinking about at this moment in time.”
The current concept is post Mt. Silver, regional traveler, Mt Silver is the EVO moment of Pokémon where his reputation depends on who’s in the circle so he's not 100% famous like how the games depict it or 100% mysterious and he's just some guy. Like my description of Red at the moment is literally just Ryu from street fighter where he's wandering looking for a good battle.


Green (rival) : see Red section Pt 1. Fluctuates depending on what I think his relationship with other people are like at that given moment in time.


Leaf: What if there was a weird girl like who came from an era that no longer exists in the modern day, unabashedly silly . (As much as I'd like to use a Leaf image here, Leaf didn't pop up once in GOTCHA.)

Kris: Chie Satonaka.


Blue (girl) and Gold: literally just their manga personalities but less absurd



Brendan and Lucas: I have never thought about them in my Life my bad, the protags appearing sometimes as side characters sometimes makes this a bit harder to do



May and Dawn: Literally just their anime versions personality wise (I say this when I haven't watched either of their debut anime seasons in years.)



Hilbert and Hilda, Nate and Rosa: My source was I made it up



Elio, Selene, Gloria, Victor: Immediate meme dumping of perpetual weird smiling twins menace the region, incredibly angry loud girl who hates being in the world of pokemon, and some guy who would fall for a cartoon mouse cheese box trick and go “egads!” .


I think it’s interesting to imagine the protag's lives after the game is beat. Where do they go, what’s their hobbies, what will they do next? I could always just use the in game stuff and optional mini game things which I was considering for Nate and Rosa but there aren’t really “actor and actress” class sprites.

Since they don’t really appear for the most part outside of Red and Masters which is kind of just there, it’s a lot easier to imagine stuff for them sometimes. But once customization pops up, for the most part I just start making my playable trainers OCs instead with some exceptions (the meme personalities). Then I have my player OCs as side characters.

The fun about it though is that it’s not really set in stone. I can kinda change it in a vacuum depending on stuff I learn and whatnot, I suppose since they are normally blank slates? So they’re like my OCs, but if I were to ever write them, this is like the interpretation of what I think about them sometimes. Minus the ones that I just go with their pokemon adventures personalities. Look, it’s a lot more entertaining dynamic wise to have a few characters that are oddball mavericks and Blue and Gold were those oddball maverick types for me. ( I never associated Blue with Leaf so that's why they'll be seperate to me.) Not all of the characterizations are completely standout for me with adventures or like, stuff I think in particular of some characters, which is why not all of them are on the page.

Some stuff might get used for like, an AU scenario. Not 100% though.



Yellow is here too but that’s because out of the manga characters I think Yellow would probably be the most interesting to drop off in a game centric universe because of like, the personality from earlier arcs. At best, she’d probably just be a random kanto cameo like in LGPE or a stat trainer, I suppose. In terms of battling prowess, uh, Yellow’s team is canonically considered somewhat weak. I guess it’s more on the character personality to carry the single non game inclusion.

The big leak section also had some profile bits for them which I can rapid fire say the most interesting ones.

Brendan and May are both described as meddlesome and bike lovers, but in terms of divergence Brendan is clumsy because he has too many interests and May is sporty and also wears glasses when reading. She’s a tournament girl who acts quickly but she isn't a tomboy.
Lucas has in interest in playing electric bass, he likes rock, and he likes taping naps as well. Dresses casually. Dawn is into ballet, piano, and spring themes. Dresses formally.
Ethan is an athlete and interested in history, Lyra has a hairpin collection because she’s always changing her style. The thing when the Gen 2 mom saves money is called embezzlement within the files.
Ethan and Lyra, Brendan and May, and Lucas and Dawn start their journeys at 12. Red started his at 11 for RGBY. 10 years old is an anime only thing.
I kind of pick and choose sometimes I suppose what I think works best for the characterization I have in mind. Even if the leak ones turn out to be fake, they’re interesting enough to stay I guess.



In spite of my whole thing on treating various lookalikes as different sometimes (Leaf, Ethan, Red) , I make Akari and Dawn the same person for some reason because I think having one protag that’s the definitive one on the level of legend that Red has in game canon is interesting. I don’t want everyone to be like that because of most Pokémon games happening to center on big legends and big team plots and what not, so I only picked one protag to be the counterpart. I think it makes sense for it to be the character from the region where they really emphasized legendary lore twice in different games. Man made legend versus pokemon picked legend.

I also note that every time I update one page the other soon follows. So like if the glitch users get something, so does the protag page. They’re mirrors to each other in that way.