#pmd!startail

So! these two are my pmd:explorers team (my first team from my first pmd game i have SUCH a soft spot for these two,,, they are tge sole reason eevee and shinx are my favorite. My pokesona as a kid was 'every eeveelution at the same time but shiny and can summon elemental wings.) (also i had to change the eevee's name bc i stole her original name for my user)(and yet only within the past month have i actually deeply elaborated on her and startail's lore... somehow...)

...Anyways. Personal lore aside, we got;

Winterfoot (eevee, she/her)

Our resident from-the-dark-future human-turned-pokemon. She really is initially just going along with things until she figures stuff out, but... she likes it here, likes helping pokemon, enjoys having the ability and opportunity to see a pokemon who needs help and just. Help them, no questions, minimal preperation. Figuring out who she used to be kinda starts to feel... less important, over time, when who she is and what she can do here are so much more immediate, and feel like they matter so much more.

(She might also be a bit of an adrenaline junkie, but hasn't really figured that part out.)

She doesn't really see herself as good at reading people; it's not that she occasionally doesn't get Bad Vibes from people, more that she's instintively over-paranoid and gets false positives so often that she just ignores all of them until proven right. (I mean, she absolutely didn't trust this random Shinx when she get here, but. Yeah, sure, what did she have to lose? What are they going to do, beat her up and steal the pocket money she doesn't have?) She doesn't want to risk not helping someone when she could be saving them a lot of grief, even if it might be a scam.

As mostly a consequence of this, the one thing that drives her up a wall in an instant is liars. Manipulators, especially, and past that even more so when someone else got hurt because of their lies that shouldn't have. If she gets hurt, fine, whatever, her fault for falling for it. But anyone else??? Nah. Nah, you're gonna catch these hands. Paws. Whatever.

(Really, she doesn't do well alone in general. The anxieties spiral, she gets locked into indecision, everything becomes overwhelming far too fast. But with a partner? Sudeenly everything has direction. Doing things for them is easy motivation. They need their relic fragment? Done. They want to form a team? Done. They want her to start actually taking care of herself? ...Well, sure, while they're around she guesses she has to start doing that now, too.)

(...She's semi-aware that this probably makes her easy to manipulate, but that goes in the Self Sustaining Anxiety Tornado with everything else. Until it gets flung back at her like a high-speed gravelrock.)

(Speaking of which she always keeps a good stack of Gravelrocks on her. Nothin' like knocking out a fleeing criminal from a room and a half away.)

Most of her story is pretty stock for pmd2- but of note is that, pre-being-eebied-to-the-dark-future, she's unovan- lived in Icirrus city, was briefly convinced to join team plasma (she THOUGHT they were 'liberating pokemon' from abusive trainers. Being a random grunt and not N, she got the full experience of 'hey a lot of these pokemon Do Not Want To Go Actually' and was Immediately Very Upset About It), afterwards decided to move to nimbasa- started working at that bw2 era pokemon shelter. Obtained a following of like 6 purrloin. She jokes they're her pokemon team. (This may or may not be a reference to my all-liepard (and a carracosta) run of pokemon black.)

Never got her drivers license. Hates cars and driving too much, causes way too much anxiety. Thinks trains are cool. Loves her job, never really think she'll do anything too dramatically heroic; she's not a good enough trainer for that sort of thing.

(Proceeds to get eebied Four Times and fights pokemon gods Two Of Those Times)

...I have more to talk about w/ her but this post is already long so SECOND we have (my bestest boy. my son. bravest bestest son boy);

Startail (shinx, he/him)

Startail, by the time he found Winter, was... honestly really used to asking for help and getting weird, 'who even is this kid?' looks and a 'no', so having this pokemon who had just? Been passed out on the beach? Not only agree to help, but agree to an exploration team? ...Honestly he's just surprised he got this far. And darnit if he's not going to do everything he can to keep the ball rolling; exploration is his dream, he loves new places and things and discoveries. Helping other pokemon is... cool too, he guesses? It's not like he doesn't want to help pokemon, or wants them hurt or anything, he's just not overly attached to pokemon he doesn't know very well is all. He does very much care about the world itself, though, and finds himself caring a lot about the pokemon he's getting close to; Winter most of all, who is... concerningly inattentive to her own well-being most of the time?

He starts to find that sticking to Winter's side, doing everything with her... isn't as bad as he'd feared it might be- when it's someone who seems like they actually enjoy spending time with you, it's actually pretty fun! He wants to explore with her, help her with things, he's concerned when she takes hits she's not supposed to, when she completely neglects her hunger because "I haven't fainted yet, I'm fine. We need to conserve apples." (they brought three and have picked up five more since. They are literally in Apple Woods, Winter.)

But- yeah hanging out with people who just like him isn't draining, it turns out, and he gets pretty stuck to her side as a result- though he eventually starts getting close enough to the other guild members (Bidoof first, then... slowly, the rest of them, too) to like hanging around them too- but Winter is his first friend, his best friend, the one who taught him he could have one of those, have any of this- so obviously she still gets first priority...

Eventually, after... everything (standard game, postgame), Startail figures out (by experimentation) that they're finally able to evolve- but before he evolves fully, decides he wants to wait until Winter can evolve. (Which requires her, of all pokemon, to decide. It's the first time she's hated being an eevee. She's the only kind of pokemon that has this many choices for an evolution- and not only that but she's making Startail wait! (She's not, he obviously decided to do this himself.)

Eventually, they manage to get their paws on a Water Stone, and- with the prospect of finally having a water type on the team, plus all the long-range moves she knows water types get? All of a sudden that's a simple chioce. (Finally... Okay yeah she still has some doubts but she's waited long enough. Fish Time. She likes water plenty anyways, it feels suitably thematic.) (also despite the internet's Allegations this vaporeon is very aroace btw)