// Kalosians culturally value the beauty of life and the pleasures in it over slaving away at work for material needs, known as a concept referred to as "joie de vivre" (joy of living). This is reflected within Kalos's society in many ways, one of which being that many companies offer generous vacation policies to employees.
Perhaps the biggest reflection is the region's annual event, locally called "les grandes vacances" (the summer holidays). It's where Kalos as a whole goes on break in a sense, as many people choose to take their vacation in July or August. Closures done in correspondence to les grandes vacances are called "fermeture annuelle" (annual closure).
The intention for the event is so people can spend quality time with family & friends, engage in hobbies, or travel overseas as an opportunity to reconnect with joie de vivre. The event lasts until around the start of September, when schools end their breaks and students return.
While a phenomenon that Kalos is known for, it does of course have many cons. Namely, traffic in the region can get dreadful. It's also inconvenient for tourists to arrive during this event, as many shops or stores they would want to visit will most likely be closed. Locals who choose to stay in Kalos may be inconvenienced like this as well, but it's become tradition for Kalosians to begin preparing for les grandes vacances in advance.
(Yes, emergency services do still remain open in Kalos as they obviously can't be closed. First-responders receive a legally-required pay raise from their employers during the two month event for compensation.)
All of this is based off of actual IRL info relating to France! Sorry in advance if there are errors or inaccuracies, the mod lives in the U.S. and tried to look at many sources online. But do keep in mind: the Pokemon World is very different and idealized compared to the real world. Everything doesn't have to (and frankly shouldn't) line up perfectly.
The "pure of heart" archetype is overdone but. Alysa legit is. She maintains a simplistic and rather naive perspective of the world because she, mentally wise, hasn't truly left her "childhood innocence" phase...mainly because she was never fully "integrated" into outside society and thusly had no frames of reference as to how people her age should truly act.
Her parents also did fuck all nurturing. She got most of her lessons of morality from watching children's cartoons and reading similar books, getting introduced to more dark aspects once she dived into fairytale reading. She did go to public school up until she was around 11 at least, her enrollment into BBA at 17 is the first schooling she's gotten since then, so it’s not like she was a pure feral/wild child.
At her age of 17 now, she's getting wiser in her own way sure, but it's very unlikely she'll ever seem like a "mature woman". Her whimsy is too powerful.
Very funny for me to imagine Drayton going through a brief freak out phase, when it fully sets in how Alysa lacks a deep sense of self preservation. Then he becomes determined to be her impulse control.
Alysa does have scars from being scratched & bitten by her pokemon (namely her Hydreigon and Salamence) over the years, but they're usually covered by her arm & leg warmers. I'll eventually sketch out what her scars look like (they aren't as numerous as my Drayton's).
Putting this headcanon here so I have somewhere to store & refer back to it:
Alysa was raised to believe that she was the only person in the world who could truly care about her own being. Any scrapes, cuts, hunger, etc were typically brushed off by her mother especially - with the statement that Alysa had to learn how to take care of herself in "this ugly, cruel world". No one was going to pick her up, she had to do so and keep herself up.
As such, Alysa became accustomed (or rather conditioned) to be turned off of asking others for help with anything. Even if her health has suffered damaged, e.g. she's injured. People can demonstrate sympathy and perhaps empathy, but everyone prioritizes their own lives over others. No one is going to hold her up to any important or special standard...and frankly, Alysa does struggle to do that for her own life. If no one cares about her, and she barely cares about herself, then just how much worth does her life have?
At this point, Alysa is aware this is a very toxic mindset. She does truly believe that her friends care about her. Regardless, old habits are hard to break. Drayton has sat down and had a few chats with her about this. She is trying to do better, and at least be more open with him when she's in distress or in need of something.
EDIT - An addition:
These bad habits do bleed into her relationship with Drayton more in another way: her instinctive need to be low maintenance. The last thing she wants to annoy Drayton, to get in his space so much with meager needs like even wanting to spend time with him, that he starts detesting her presence. So, she downplays her feelings and keeps things quiet a lot of the time. She always agrees to hang out with him if he asks, and after a whole, he did start to notice that she never initiated things herself.
He is not at all happy about it ofc, but they are working on it together.
// As a fashion design freelancer, Valerie's primary way to make money is to sell her designs to fashion houses, clothing manufacturers, or to shops.
The price can vary, but usually one complete clothing set (including any accessories) costs around or even over 2,000,000 pokeyen (= ~13,300$) due to the high quality of them. However, it isn't as if she gets to truly keep that amount of money. She invests it back into hiring manufacturers to supply her with their services, to hire models from an agency for her fashion shows, etc. Spending money to make money.
While Valerie does earn a good enough income to live comfortably and saves her money outside of making donations to charities, she isn't as wealthy as she can come off as. Her brand is luckily well-known and trusted to be high quality worldwide, many of her designs have been used & are being used in media production industries across multiple regions, so she can regularly find work at this stage in her career.
Valerie knows she would probably be better off financially-wise not freelancing, instead being directly employed by a company, but that would make her schedule uncontrollable and she wouldn't get the freedom of choice in her projects. She's much happier just doing her own thing, even if she's making less than what she could.
Her other avenue of main income comes from commission work, where clients (individuals, agents of a company, etc) hire her for her skills to fulfill whatever designs they want. She's also very open to design clothing & accessories for pokemon - something not too many other designers do. While it depends on the project and everything involved in it, Valerie's rates are generous as a whole for individuals. She gives a discount to clients under the age of 20, and birthday discounts if the client can show proof.
Her secondary job as a Gym Leader, while it doesn't pay NEARLY as well, is still a priority. Maintaining the gym building is her biggest responsibility. Training her gym assistants, and training her team so they don't lose their touch in battle comes second. She's also sometimes required to go to meetings or other events organized by the Kalos League - she always wears clothing she designed to the latter. Valerie basically uses the attention she gets from her Gym Leader work to feed back into her fashion design career.
When it comes down to it, Valerie's free time where she doesn't have to go out or work in her studio rarely expands beyond a day or two - and even then, she's almost always by her computer or has her work phone at the ready to respond to messages from clients or from factories. The true free time she does get, she dedicates to looking after & playing with her pokemon. Her scattered vacation days give her the most freedom.
Bellamy (her Mr. Mime) and Ardien (her Gardevoir) are like Valerie's butlers in a sense, as they help her out with keeping the cottage clean and feeding everyone.
It’s a two-story cottage on the outskirts of Laverre City. Though not comparable to an extravagant villa or manor, it is elegant in a rustic sense, and has a certain charm to it.
Around the cottage, there’s a large amount of vibrant flowers and other greenery, which is thanks to the influence of Valerie’s Florges: Fleureine. Her massive backyard is what provides the most space for her pokemon, with the youngest & most active ones able to run around and play while the others go to relax. Some may prefer even sleeping out there at night as opposed to sleeping in the house if the weather is tolerable.
Due to the cottage being quite a distance away from the main center of Laverre and thus closer to the woods, wild pokemon are common visitors as are some others, though Valerie’s "stay-at-home" pokemon are good at keeping the troublesome ones away. The backyard also contains Valerie’s main flower & berry garden, which is fiercely protected by Fleureine.
The interior of the house is about as unassuming yet appealing as the outside. Valerie has decorations scattered about, most of it being: ceramics, paintings, or framed / hanging needlework projects she’s made herself. She has some gemstones around as old gifts from Grant, and a few potted plants. There are no fake plants present anywhere, as Fleureine hates them.
The downstairs area consists of a living room filled with plush furniture and a fireplace, a kitchen, a washroom, and a secluded room off to the side of the house that serves as Valerie’s office & studio. The upstairs area has her master bedroom & bathroom, a spare bedroom, an additional bathroom, and two hall closets. She has an attic that's used as a basic storage area. There's no basement.
The cottage itself is quite old, and was actually abandoned by the previous owner due to "unwanted visitors from the woods" encroaching. As a result, it was cheap for a house to buy, and Valerie wasn't worried about the place's stigma as it was sure to be better than her apartment in Lumiose anyway. She's yet to have any actual problems.
To fit her specific...needs, the house was tweaked to her liking. Namely, wherever there would be iron handles or doorknobs or etc in a normal house are instead made of wood or other materials in her cottage.
