#future grovyle

Fitting to start with Skylar's references first. I recently redid them which gave me some fresh new ideas for her character too.

Her first ref sheet is of her human form. I put a lot of thought into how she'd interact with Grovyle and the others like this and my conclusion was to use the power of psychic pokemon. Her necklace is an espeon pearl that essentially gives her telepathy, a very important item for her.

Aside from that she carries round and assortment of dungeon crawling materials. A small dagger for cutting through foliage, a not as small bat for knocking Sableye into next week. Since she's super active and basically has to throw hands to defend herself she's got some decent muscle on her. She can also use the psychic powers from the pearl to add an extra kick to her bat attacks but that doesn't do much when you're punting small dark types.

I like to think if she had a pokemon type she'd be fighting / psychic (dimensional scream counts as psychic powers, right?) Pokestar studio style.

Then there's her pokemon form which needs less explanation. I think the most interesting new lore I added to her was that she'd naturally have the psychic tera type. I used to really like to draw her with her eyes open when she was shocked or surprised in the past but I think that's an honor reserved for when she has dimensional screams now.

Char is very much like the other pokemon in universe where his name is pretty much just his species. The name Char is actually a nickname Skylar gave him that stuck with everyone in the Guild and he uses it over Charmader because after the events of the game he feels like he's become a different pokemon, someone braver.

Of course by nature he's still very much cautious and apprehensive. This manifests more in being tactical and careful with how Team Water Lotus operate as an exploration team. He's the one to reel in Skylar when she goes a bit too crazy and manages things in the team like direct requests, item management ect.

That's not to say Skylar can't do those things, she was in charge of that stuff when she was still human, but Char really loves doing it and it gives him some peace of mind because even though Skylar is a great strategist, her plans are very often extremely reckless and risky. He likes to play it safe.

One of my favourite things that I adapted from the game into this AU is his relationship with Grovyle. Since Skylar regains bits of her memory in the AU via dimensional screams before the escape from the future arc, her desperation to meet Grovyle really confuses and hurts him. His initial distaste for Grovyle stems from a deeper place of being unwilling to lose the pokemon who he thinks makes him stronger and a lot of that arc is about him coming into his own as the mixed messages Skylar gets from her memories and what she's being told kinda put her out of commission.

One of the more fun things about his design is that he originally had the standard orange flame but a long while back a friend of mine drew him with a blue flame and I thought it was so cool I added it to his design. Blue fire comes from complete combustion and is hotter so I really love the idea that Char's fire producing organs are extremely efficient so his fire moves tend to have a little more kick. When he's out of shape or very unwell his flame burns with a yellow undertone as a visual reminder that our boy needs some rest.