hello! my name is erika, im 28, i run on pst, and this is my interpretation of everyone's favorite children's mob boss, giovanni! he goes by both giovanni and sakaki here, with sakaki being his actual name, just for clarification's sake!
before you follow, please read my rules and about.
headcanon masterlist.
other blogs: lionfanged, iappearmissing, pnthra
"You know how many young idiots wanna be gym leaders? I'd just have to put an ad out and we'd have a whole line." The other man isn't wrong though; he could just make her rewrite the reports until he didn't want to kill her every time she submitted one.
He dug a folder out of the inside of his cape, scowling at it as he flipped through.
"Any suspicious activity in Viridian lately? If not, I need you to visit Celadon for a couple days, Erika wants back up from another gym leader while she investigates some claims of suspicious activity around the game corner. She thinks it's more than just teenagers fucking around with nothing better to do this time." That's what it's been the last three times she'd asked to investigate but if she wanted to waste her own time that was her problem.
Lance scribbled a signature on the papers after a moment. One down, just fifty more to go.
" and suffer the consequences of young, inexperienced gym leaders that you will have to inevitably coach? "
sakaki arched a brow, doubtful of this plan. it sounded like more work than simply further shaping sabrina into the mold she was refusing to slot herself into. they all went through difficulties conforming to the duties that were asked of them, but eventually, they all conceded defeat. perhaps lance had been going about it the wrong way.
if he was champion, he would rule over the league differently... but that didn't matter right now, did it?
" viridian has been quiet, as it usually is. given how small the village is, i would hear of a disturbance quickly. it must be difficult living in a bustling city like celadon where the worst of the worst tend to flock... "
sakaki hummed, clicking his tongue against the back of his teeth, ponderous as if he were not the cause for erika's distress. not once had she been wrong in her suspicions of what crime was gathering in her city--but she hadn't yet figured out why her reports kept being dismissed, and why things seemed to always get quiet whenever lance was visiting.
" i'd be happy to assist erika. i do know she has a record of inappropriate visitors to the city, trying to snoop around her gym for lecherous reasons... perhaps they're finding a new way to lure her and her trainers out for a peek. "
"I could make you do it." He probably couldn't actually, the man had his own work to do and some of the paperwork Lance had to deal with was for champion eyes only but still. The principle of the matter!
Lance dragged a hand down his face, sighing. He probably should stop using the Viridian Gym as a refuge honestly.
"Ugh, fine. I'll read the stupid reports. If Sabrina's is just a bunch of psychic symbols again, I'm revoking her gym authority."
sakaki scoffed, humored. he knew many of his league peers and the many staff members who served the kanto league were intimidated by lance. he was fierce, sharp-tongued, and was only just barely reserved enough in his speaking to not outright insult others... in a professional setting, at least. dragon-type specialists were often like that, being as fearsome as the beasts they tamed.
but sakaki never faltered, looking at lance as though he were just a boy having a bit of a tantrum, rather than a grown man who held the power to unravel all of his plans.
" and where will you find a gym leader to fill her place if you revoke her on such short notice? you'll leave a vacuum that will have the other leaders scrambling, " sakaki noted, clicking his tongue against the back of his teeth. " just send back her reports until they are how you want them, and penalize her for delays. it'll be a reminder to her of her position and the appropriate protocol she needs to consider. "
i think the anime ruined meowth as a pokemon and in extension other cat pkmn.
instead of letting meowth the character be unique in being bipedal alongside his other human attributes, like teaching himself how to talk, they made it a weird universal thing in-game for all the meowths to be default bipedal... which makes no sense.
meowth pulled himself up by his metaphorical bootstraps to walk on his hind legs, why tf these other meowths doing it by default!!
and then there's other cat pkmn like purrloin...
it was perfectly fine and quadrupedal when it was released.
but the MOMENT they had to give it a 3d model, they had to make it on par with meowth (the character) by having it be on its hindlegs as well!! why!!
words caught between dry mirth and comforting warmth, for an absentee father, sakaki managed. it was all about striking a balance, cradling the line between respecting the adult his son had grown into, and the child he inevitably still saw him as. behind that stern, steely gaze, sakaki saw the little boy that had been stolen from him.
so many years, robbed. and so many more to be lost due to choices that could not be taken back.
" and ruin your life here in paldea? what will happen when the authorities figure out who i am? how you are associated with me? the academy likely won't be pleased. "
silver himself had his own checkered past. to layer that in with learning that his father was a former yakuza boss infamous for turning kanto on its head would not bode well. for all the people he had wronged, of all the crimes committed, the only person in this world--no, universe--that he would ever regret hurting was the boy before him.
" silver... "
sakaki's hand moved on its own, and for all of his efforts of respecting boundaries and the man his son had become, his fingers still ended up in dark red locks, tussling his hair.
" if you need me, i will know, and i will be there. but i believe the people you have by your side now will do more for you than i could ever offer. "
they knew the nuanced, complex person silver had become, while sakaki...
sakaki knew nothing.
his knowledge was limited to what his spies had collected, and that was nothing compared to what a father should know. he didn't know silver's favorite food, what songs he often had stuck in his head, whether he preferred tea or coffee or some third option, or how to comfort him. he'd be nothing but a burden.
" silver--are you really not going to give your father a hug? "
he technically hears him before lips part, before words are even able to be spoken, with a slow blink ending in eyebrows furrowing deeper than their neutral... gaze staring off into nothingness, then beginning a slow focusing into just the space in front of him. as if the voice produced by the owner of those steps behind him rooted him, affixed to the spot.
shock...
and utter denial.
' silver... '
when was it the last time that he heard that voice?
lugia, so long ago, so long ago it felt like there had been the echo of a ghost rather than that of a true voice.
and with the turn of his right foot, like it had been on autopilot rather than controlled willfully, silver's able to turn his cheek to look over his shoulder at the man who had haunted him for a decade. argent eyes blown wide, eyebrows that had once been relaxed into surprise now begin to furrow and knit downwards dangerously.
you ... ?
and even with the rage that begins to bubble up in his guts and his throat, even with realization and lack of want to accept reality clash, silver can't find it in himself to fucking move. to bring himself out of this exact spot on the ground, to fix his face back into neutrality / not to give any information and emotion away, to pick up his guard.
he simply stares at his father, who was really standing there, disbelief and astonishment and stupefaction and anger instead making itself at home on his face and then some.
after all this time, after all this time and you would show up here, now, like this - !
' are you really not going to give your father a hug? '
and it's almost as if all the anger inside of silver's bones, housed inside of his body for twenty-six years, just dissipates. up into the atmosphere like smoke - vapor, blending in with the air around him like it was nothing ; like his rage was something so easily quelled.
but in a second, it resurges - causing silver to fully turn and place his full weight on his left leg to complete the rotation as one gloved hand rose from his pocket to drag slowly down his jaw. how dare you remove yourself from my life when i needed you, how dare you leave like that when i needed you, how dare you come back like this and demand a fucking hug when i needed you for so long - ?
...
... ... but, to receive a hug from his estranged father ... ...
this time, exhaustion seeps into silver's face, into his arms as his shoulders almost seem to give into a slump.
" gonna ... stab me in the back, while you're at it ... ? "
... and he isn't quite sure what possesses him, but feet drag their way as each mechanical step brings him closer, and closer. right in front of the man ... silver's eyes staring endlessly, searching his face, for signs of ill intent. and he was met with none.
something, dare he even say, genuine.
for a moment, silver allows his gaze to fall. trace down his father's face, then throat cloaked in a suit, down his sternum-clad in black and white, to his own arms. to the way how he'd been standing. - my father.
there was no sign of a surprise attack, no reach for a pokeball or knife, just ... the offer of a hug.
... ... he brings his leaden arms up, and slowly encircles them around giovanni, underneath the arms he raised in tandem. don't go. please, don't go again. why can't you just stay here with me?