akagi, and self-made families
i've rambled enough about it on the hc twitter it probably belongs in a proper post here. also, a lot of history and childhood.
by now we all know that Akagi was raised in an abusive home. he was kept extremely isolated from other children his age, and faced pressure to succeed from his parents to a completely overbearing degree. their primary tendency was towards psychological and emotional abuse due to their unreasonably high expectations, but there were times--few and far between, but times--that physical confrontations occurred. the worst of these was as a preteen, during an argument with his father at the top of the stairs (I say "argument", but even by this time he knew better than to really argue--he's already learned to bite down on the side of his mouth, and never make eye contact). his father slapped him, but the impact was unintentionally strong enough to send Akagi, who was Fucking tiny and thin and weighed as much as a piece of paper, tumbling backwards down the stairs. the fall broke his leg. he still walks with a limp, just slightly; you'd never notice it today unless you were really, really watching him.
he had a few very small reprieves from his parents, and his work. Flint and Volkner were one of them. their friendship was unexpected, and Akagi never really knew how to interact with them, but Flint's persistence and aggressive friendliness was hard to ignore or avoid. for the longest time, the only affection or positive attention Akagi regularly received was from his Zubat. having two children, younger than him but close enough to his own age, to talk to presented an opportunity for a huge change in him. I like to think that he tutored them for a while, helped them with school, and even after a time told them of his own engineering projects/concepts (hi Volkner, hi, cool idea for those solar panels, COOL IDEA). unfortunately, this didn't last--as he approached his teen years, his home situation became worse. a breaking point was reached, and one night he just... left. and didn't look back.
he was fifteen when he first met Cynthia in the Canalave library. she was halfway through her first league challenge, a fierce battler already, and studying history and mythology in her free time. when she first approached him he was highly skeptical of her, but he always did seem to attract the most persistent imaginable friends. they connected on a much better level than Akagi had with Flint and Volkner; they spent nearly a month in Canalave, much longer than Cynthia had intended her stay to be. she finally moved on, and he didn't linger long after her. the library lost a lot of its appeal without the companionship.
by then he had already started developing the ideology that would later lead to Team Galactic, and the clock turned forward years and years, and present Akagi is so much different than child Akagi, or even Platinum-era Akagi. by the time of the Hoopa plot, Team Galactic is fully dedicated to clean and affordable energy resources, and he’s left it mostly in the hands of Saturn. this shift of power has left Akagi himself time to pursue his own personal projects, which are admittedly still less than savory, but they keep him busy. they keep him to himself. he lives in his parents’ old Sunyshore house now, has turned their basement into his personal lab, and is well on his way to complete closed-off solitude when the Hoopa plot begins. at this point in time, his only consistent source of communication is with Giratina during his frequent returns to the Distortion World.
I’d originally intended to keep him this way until Gracie, but I’m rethinking this now. I feel like his involvement in the plot will change a lot of his dynamics with other characters, particularly Hicks and Cynthia. I doubt that Hicks will ever fully trust him and certainly not like him, but my intent is that through his involvement here, it alters his relationships with the people he was previously at odds with. Obviously redemption isn't something he’s seeking, wants, or expects, but it’s clear now that he understands the gravity and the folly of his actions during Platinum. It’s left him more jaded, if that was possible, and resigned, but he realizes that he could never have, should never have, succeeded. the change in Galactic’s direction is his way of offering penance--finding a way to improve the world already here.
one of my favorite tropes or themes is characters finding families for themselves, people who have been alone and hurt patching together their own self-made relationships and support systems. that’s what I want for Akagi. he had the smallest glimpse of that as a child, with his grandfather, but more consistently with Flint and Volkner, and Cynthia. he’ll have that again with Cynthia, gradually. and then later on with Gracie, and with Gracie maybe even Hicks, in her own way. it doesn't need to be significant, or constant, but I want him to have something. he needs something.
by the time he’s old and his body starts to really, really suffer from the decay created by the Distortion World, I don’t want him to be alone.
