#peixcellent

~LONG RAMBLEY VERSION~

Why I like them

I like elderly characters. I like chubby characters. I like characters that don’t follow the “everyone must be beautiful and thin and young” thing that most evil poketeams seem to do. I like mad scientists. I like the “egotistical yet incompetant” archetype. I have a soft spot for pink-haired male characters. He reminds me of an evil version of my adorable grandma (especially the way they animate him laughing in the tv show) I like self-aware self-serving villain characters that riff on the stupidness of their predicament/their coworkers/how they’re only here for the money and don’t even care about the team’s goals. Like.. allianceless mercenary-esque villains who’re against the one they call boss and would stab them in the back as soon as a better opportunity presents itself. Starscream, etc. Especially when they’re sassy and sarcastic about it!I like the idea of him and a cute lil Rotom as a goofy opposite personalities duo. Reminds me of Pinky and The Brain, or Calvin and Hobbes! I just really like his backstory in general, its 99% of his appeal. Promoting him from merely a throwaway comedy character to a fully rounded guy that I’m actually interested in. Maybe with at least one positive trait buried under all the evil. So its a shame the story never latched onto any of that plot potential, but I guess that’s why we have fanfics!ALSO I really like characters that act like they love themself to mask that they hate themself. I kinda got that vibe from him even if it’s not exactly confirmed in canon. It doesn’t seem that he’s particularly happy, and he’s doing this evil stuff to work towards a goal that he’ll never achieve. He’ll never become aknowledged as a famous scientist, and nor will he ever satisfy his greed- where’s the stopping point where you have ENOUGH money? So I can feel pity towards his predicament, even if it’s entirely his own fault XD If anything, that promotes more pity because its sad that he’ll never realise he’s only making things worse for himself. Thinking that being evil is the solution when it’s actually the cause of all his problems :P

Why I don’t

Oddly enough, all his bad traits just make me like him more! Because it makes him an entertaining, comedic villain. I enjoy seeing him onscreen no matter what he’s doing, and its like… I even enjoy seeing him get defeated and humiliated because I know he deserves it no matter how fun he is, y'know? I don’t dislike anything about the character, even though I know he’s a deeply flawed human being. But deeply flawed human beings have the most plot potential in fiction~! And its not like I hate him for being a bad guy, that’s his intended plot role after all. And he’s funny and he doesn’t seem unforgiveably evil or anything, since he’s so petty and incompetant and his goals are really low anyway. “Acquire a money! Be a famous! Possibly both!”I mean lol he literally just wanted to catch a legendary pokemon to rob a bank or something. I dunno how he even thought his plan was gonna work! “Awaken Heatran, ???, somehow profit!”So… nooope I can’t think of anything I don’t like about him, although there’s plenty of stuff that’s BAD about him. Hmm… I do wish the guy would realise his issues and have some character development, I dunno. Every time I like a villain I always want them to turn into a good guy, no matter how unlikely it seems.

Favorite episode (scene if movie)

Well he only had one episode in the anime that focused on him, so that’d be a boring answer. Scene it is!I just LOVE his backstory diary thing in the Rotom event. I didn’t expect to get a sudden hint that this jerkass might have a secret soft spot for his pokemon, or at least had one once as a child. I’m really interested in knowing how he went from an Ash-and-Pikachu situation to becoming such a douchelord villain!And it’s just so goddamn cute cos it’s still in his same weird hammy posh speech style, yet its refreshing to see the lack of his usual ego. So cute to hear him babbling on about how someone ELSE is the greatest person who ever lived~ FRIENDSHIPPPPP~~

Favorite season/movie

…again, he only got a minor anime appearance.So lets talk intercontinuity instead! I definately like the games more than the others, but I can find a reason to enjoy all of his versions. The anime reduced him to a bit part but gave him this funny role of being entirely aware of it, just floating in the background sarcastically commenting on how the team’s plan sucks. And it established him as a computer nerd and gave us a rivalry between him and Saturn, and changed a boring “fyahaha” laugh to hammy “GEHEHEHEHYEEEH” cos he was voiced by Eggman. Makes more sense that Jupiter can’t stand him if he’s always doing that XDAnd I didn’t like DPA making him (mostly) a boring non-comedic super serious threatening villain drawn in a creepy horror movie art style, until for some reason he became all harmless and funny after he was defeated anyway. Hard to believe that he’s a goofball when you said he uses suicide bombers! o.OBut I still liked that he was the main villain for an entire arc, since he’s never got that much screentime anywhere else.

Favorite line

* Another fave one from le cute backstory diary: “Don’t chastise yourself. The fault is mine. No harm done. Let us play as we always have.’ Though my words poured out, my friend could not be found to hear them…” Its so damn WEIRD seeing the guy have emotions for a pokemon when in the present day he seems like such a self-obsessed jackass.* “What do they see in Cyrus? Immature, overthinking buffoon. He goes through the trouble of assembling Team Galactic for what? Ultimately, he destroys his own creation for his ludicrous vision. It’s no thanks to him that I have to struggle with the pieces.”* “What are you saying? I know nothing! A new Team Galactic? Extorting with Heatran? Merely the blathering of this harmless old man! All said in jest! Besides, among Team Galactic’s Commanders, I was the most junior…”* Not a line, but I loved the bit in the anime where he hacks the Interpol system and just replaces everything with this hella goofy pic of his own face. (See my avatar, lol!)* Also anime, when he’s like “of course this is spear pillar, Saturn!” *dramatic scene of opening a briefcase to reveal a key* *it doesn’t work* “of course this isn’t spear pillar, Saturn!” *same scene in reverse* *never admits his mistake** Also not a line but seriously its the best part of DPA- him burning his hand when he tries to summon Heatran. For all his self-proclaimed genius he didn’t have the common sense to think that something called the Magma Stone might be hot XD Its just a shame that his comedic moments are oddly sparse in this canon!

Favorite outfit

He only has one, lol! I guess its just par for the course, most pokecharacters except Jessie and James never change costume anyway XD(Tho I headcanon that he literally never changes outfit in-universe, he’s the sort of guy who’d wear a labcoat to the grocery store or at the beach or even when he’s sleeping)

OTP

None! I doubt he’d be compatible with many people. He’s a grumpy antisocial bastard who cares more about fame and fortune, and I also headcanon him as asexual. Even if he considered romance to be remotely important (unlikely), he’s such a dillweed that he’d probably get no success anyway.

Brotp

More like literal BROTP, lol! I headcanon his relationship with his Rotom as being similar to siblings. They were best friends as kids (same as canon) but he grew to see her as an adoptive big sister. Which makes him an even bigger douche for growing up to be evil, and maybe or maybe not abandoning her in the Old Chateau. Still, I like to write fanfics where this big fluffy cute trainer-pokemon brother-sister relationship is rekindled and gives him a chance to be a jerk with a heart of gold, rather than just a jerk. (Whenever I like a villain I want them to get redeemed, no matter how unlikely it is! XD)Oh and a random note- since Rotom’s personality is never described in canon, many people make up their own versions. I know someone who draws a lot of shipping between Charon and a gijinka version of Rotom, and I think her art’s really cute even if I don’t ship it. Its like lol I just like Charon and Rotom being close regardless of how the fic writer chooses to interpret the relationship. (I never would have expected shipping though! That certainly surprised me. Not that it was an unpleasant surprise XD)

Head Canon

Another one!The games/anime/manga all never stated what kind of scientist he is, or what he actually does in the team. In the games at least, Cyrus is supposed to be a mechanical genius who apparantly invented the various team gadgets, so what is Charon doing? Personally I saw him as “knockoff pokemon professor”! Like.. a pokemon researcher/biologist/frankensteiny surgeon. Cyrus can make his own gadgets but he needs to hire a guy to help research and capture Dialga and Palkia. (After all, the Red Chain is a mythical magical thing made by apparantly cutting the jewels off the lake trio, not just another invention that Cyrus could have made in a cave with a box of scraps)But I also like the anime thing of him being a super computer hacker guy, I just figure that’s his hobby rather than his job XD

Unpopular opinion

The fact that I like him at all, lol! And the fact that I like him more than the rest of Team Galactic. And the fact that I think he could potentially maybe turn good in the future if he was given a well-written redemption plot. I dunno why general consensus is the exact opposite, I guess I just have weird tastes in characters. (Literally he is the ONLY villain in the entirety of DPA who’s treated as inherantly irredeemable and nobody even tries… this is the series that ramped up Cyrus to a guy who literally said “the sacrifice of hundreds of pokemon means nothing” while surrounded by graves and yet still redeemed him…)

A wishHim not being 100% evil to become canon, kinda. I know its a long shot but I’d like if he got redeemed somehow. Or even if the whole Rotom plot was just referenced more in the main game and not relegated to easily-missable trivia. The idea of him being 100% evil now but falling from being good as a child is interesting too, that’s a nice conflict.

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen

To be entirely honest all the baddest stuff has already happened to him- being sidelined in the plot, having an anticlimactic ending, not getting a boss battle, being drawn horribly offmodel, being the least popular, having his entire backstory awkwardly handled and shoved behind a paywall so nobody can see it unless they were lucky enough to get the Platinum wifi events, being turned into a boring “he’s sooo scary and threatening” type villain in the DPA manga, the anime giving him literally no plot role at all, every adaptation forgetting the Rotom backstory as if even those writers didn’t manage to get the stupid wifi event…So if none of that stuff fazed me then I dunno what could happen that would be worse. Well, unless they don’t bring him back in the SInnoh remakes cos they’re based on DP instead of platinum, or they redesign him to become a thin young bishie guy or something.

5 words to best describe them

Oddly enough I’d also say that ‘Charon’ best describes him, lol! It was a really good choice for a name change in the dub, it’s a moon named after a death god that charges money to cross the river to the afterlife XD

My nickname for them