commissions closed

the sharp and promising grandchild of the most prestigious professor with big shoes to fill and all the pressure in the world to become somebody, whose neighbor and best friend is a bit soft and easy to underestimate somehow ends up hardening into this mysterious prodigy they're now in the shadow of. and the years and years of estrangement after that and wanting to be close again but now knowing how. am i talking about red and blue or leon and sonia

i can go on about the blue parallels in sonia and how it diverges to raihan 🫢 but this is about leon and red

the parallels between them was one of the things that initially endeared me to leon. i made a comic a few years ago about this 🙈

i think of red finally off of mt. silver and participating in the unova world tournament. battling publically for the first time since his debut indigo league run. i think he learns a lot about how to enjoy battling for its own sake and navigating the spotlight and what responsibilities that entails. its not as scary with blue there. and since blue has more experience professionally battling since being a gym leader, he learns a lot from him. i think that experience is what made him later feel capable of running the battle tree with blue

red got to reclaim batting at his own pace and on his terms but at what cost yknow 😭 spending a few months(?) a year or two(?) isolated and roughing it on a fucking mountain. not even getting into team rocket and mewtwo LOL

☝️🤓 i do think the culture around battling in kanto vs galar being so different and what being a champion means in both of those regions matters. the industry in galar has so much more economic and political power compared to kanto. the stadium gyms and sponsorship logos on the gym leader uniforms say enough about that

but i think red gave up the title for a few reasons. he doesnt want to be tethered. i hc him traveling and doing field research expeditions for blue and the lab. being stuck within the indigo plateau seemed like a suffocating nightmare back then. and what would he be waiting on, there? for blue to come back and challenge him? what would be the point. i think he knew rejecting the title would make blue spiral. maybe it was his way of showing him if you have the "right" thing for the wrong reason, then you've got nothing at all

and i think that's what leon learned 🫣 being the galar champ for so long

i think the way raihan challenged leon every year would be like if red did keep the title and blue kept steamrolling through the elite four over and over. i think he'd never win cos his mind wasn't right. and like with raihans pov: at that point, its not even about the title. its about proving something else. i think it took raihan a few years to reach that point tbh.

but the way leon couldn't run from it the way red did (chairman rose is haunting this conversation) 🥀 but in a way he sort of does. I think the isolation of the battle tower is what allows him to re-experience battling on his own terms in the way red got to on mt.silver

in joodles world the champion gloria rematch with chairman leon in the privacy of the battle tower is as glorious and insane as ethan and lyra's against red in the desolate mt.silver.........

but both of those battles for leon and red sort of reminds them why they are who they are. and maybe some clues on how to go forward from that