#deadlyroseshipping

A glimpse of red amongst the grey muted surroundings caught his eye. It was a specifically human shade of red, deep and velvet. A red dress visible through the gentle snowfall.

A woman was standing. Swaying on her feet. Her arms wrapped around herself. She was whimpering softly in the cold.

“where… oh where... where are you… my..?”

She was… obviously not well dressed for the weather. A labcoat over a dress that was torn and ripped. Was… she wounded? She hadn’t even noticed Peony yet.

Peony hesitated. This didn’t seem right. A frostlass maybe? He’d always been by his brother that they snatched men away in blizzards like this while disguised as beautiful women.

But she was there either way. Crying and sobbing in the snow. If this wasn’t a trick or illusion, then leaving now meant she’d surely die. Peony swallowed hard. He had his Copperajah with him. He could beat one frostlass if it came to it.

He steps forward. “Hey!” He calls out into the blinding white.

She looks from her agony. Where she’s holding a Pokéball tight. Peony yelps as she suddenly lunges for him, hands outstretched, frozen tears and mascara painting her face. Copperajah bursts from its pokéball to protect its trainer. The iron elephant bellows. The pokéball in the woman’s hands burst open. The other Copperajah bellows in response.

Peony’s eyes widen.

His brother’s Copperajah.

Now. For Oleana. Where to start? No seriously. Where to start?

She gets the bare minimum characterization in the game and has her own Twilight Wings episode where we definitely learn more about her, but again, most people who played the games didn't watch Twilight Wings. So I see a lot of people misunderstand her. Which I think is a real shame. Her characterization of just having a garbador and then a whole team having of traditionally beautiful Pokémon. In Pokémon masters she mentions an image change, and that's... that's fucking heartbreaking. Trubbish was her starter. When she was shy. Just a scientist. An underpaid to unpaid intern. But to move up, to break that glass ceiling, she had to hide trubbish. Choose a new style. Full of pretty and feminine Pokémon. And hell. I don't know the gender of all my followers, but I am a very masculine cisgender woman. And I love being masculine. I love playing in the dirt, I love hiking, I love fishing, I love buzz cutting my hair short I love my butch cut, I hate make up, I love shooting guns and watching anime and having stuffed animals. But we all feel the societal pressure to conform to our genders and traditional beauty standards in order to achieve success. Yes I wore I professional business suit to my graduation. But I still show up for job interviews in a dress. Because I want success more than I care about expressing myself honestly. And damn. Leaving behind your "ugly" starter Pokémon, your ace, to swap it out for your public facing team of pretty cute and feminine Pokémon. It's worse than throwing out your Legos or your stuffed animals, it's like throwing out a friend group, or your childhood best friend. A Pokémon is a part of a trainer. It must be like having a part of soul missing? Arceus above I literally can't imagine how painful that would be.

And she still obviously cares about her Garbador.

Not to mention Oleana's anger isn't traditionally lady like. And fuck man. It's heartbreaking. And that leads me to more questions about her. She's obviously incredibly loyal to Rose even if we're looking at this objectively and disregarding my own ship preferences. I don't think Rose would make her throw out Trubbish. He doesn't seem to mind the little Pokémon. And we already talked about Copperajah being a symbol of Rose's true cultural heritage (one he might not be proud of).

So that leads me back to the big thing I think about Oleana. She should've been Rose's equal, and been a co-chairwoman. Not only would it make them both stand out among the villains, but also be a first of collaborating team leader villains. Together twin paragons of capitalistic normalized evil of self suppression and unintentional apathy.

They also dropped the ball in giving Oleana lines that could've explained why she's so loyal to Rose, or Rose's backstory. She could've dropped the bit about Rose's father being dead.

But then there's her backstory, which I think has lots of room in it yet for exploration. Did she also overcome poverty? Did Rose help lift her out of it? She's also extremely smart, given she basically invented ways to safely dynamax for the fun of it. And that never gets touched on enough. Without Oleana there's no modern Galarian Pokémon league. So I think she should be Rose's equal.

Her story is just. So relatable to me. Giving up a part of you because you need to fit in. Being a square peg sawing off your corners so you can fit in the round hole. Because if you don't fit you'll never get a job. So yeah. Another case of great character they never do anything with.