#pleabargainshipping

[casual-praxis]

I have been informed that Colress and Looker's ship name is PleaBargainShipping and the more I think about it the funnier it gets

I know the ship probably originates specifically from the anime, but I find the concept of it most appealing in the manga's continuity, just because of what it could have been

I'm picturing a dynamic something like... Looker constantly chasing after Colress, fumbling most attempts to catch him in comedic fashion, unintentionally feeding Colress's ego with unintended compliments (ex. "he really is a genius" or "as expected of an evil mastermind"), and only ever getting close when Colress lets him

Meanwhile Colress is just like, "I have to kill him ♡"

They probably cross paths several times in mundane places and it completely slips Looker's mind to capture Colress until it's too late and they've already spent an hour talking about nonsense while eating burgers and now Colress is gone

You'll get him one day, man

Feels like pokespe Colress's love language is declarations of murderous intent. Be it for friends, potential love interests, what have you. My only basis for this is how frequently it happens, and how positively he reacted when Zinzolin threatened him

[missingno]

Show him the aliens Looker.

[casual-praxis]

Recently I've been rotating an idea for a PleaBargainShipping fic around in my head and it has since ballooned into an intricate concept

I wanted to explore a post-canon pokespe dynamic where Colress and Looker have to live together for a little bit due to Interpol running with the first Not Horrible demand Colress throws out (he stopped giving serious suggestions once he realized Interpol wasn't considering anything he actually wanted)

It's basically house arrest for Colress, and Looker is around to make sure he doesn't get up to anything he shouldn't be. While this is ongoing, Looker is still tasked with small missions to complete, but he's unable to leave the Unova region until this whole matter is settled. Colress doesn't have much freedom yet, so until he can prove himself trustworthy, Interpol only has him reviewing schematics for minor technical projects, of which his opinions on can be discarded at any point

The whole vibe is supposed to be like, slowburn enemies to lovers, I think? It wasn't supposed to have a very serious plot, more along the lines of wacky roommate shenanigans, but now I'm trying to figure out how this whole thing could end on a happy note (I'm really bad at writing happy endings)

I can't see pokespe Colress reacting well at all to the revelation that Lack-Two is pretending to be him, and I also can't see him willingly working with Interpol long term if he can help it. Likewise, Looker isn't going to leave Interpol, and I can't see him letting Colress escape just to make him happy. I'm sure there's a solution in here somewhere, I just gotta think on it a little more

My main idea was that maybe if Looker could convince Colress that pokemon are most powerful when given love and friendship, it might be easier to get him to work with Interpol, but I feel like that's still an uphill battle considering Lack-Two beat Colress with genuine cruelty towards his pokemon (bringing Excavaler into battle just to sacrifice it, blowing it up basically), whereas Colress failed despite showing his pokemon a bunch more affection comparatively

I'm also not convinced that wouldn't just make Colress spiral, seeing as this iteration of him is prone to freaking out when his methods are thrown into question. He might interpret it as his inventions being doomed to fail from the start, though that might work as a good springboard for him shifting his focus elsewhere at least

If y'all have any ideas or interest in this, I'd love to hear it

Tempted to start working on this idea even without a concrete ending in mind, just see what it do

[casual-praxis]

Pokespe PleaBargainShipping thoughts are happening but I have to sleep soon, alas

I really wish they’d gotten to interact more in the manga’s actual story, even just in a general capacity. Like, I think it would have been really interesting if Looker was the Interpol agent in charge of tracking Colress specifically

Their banter, what little we have of it, is already more entertaining than anything Lack-Two could produce (I’m mixed on how I feel about him still, he’s just kinda….gary stu…). Looker actually tried to challenge Colress’s beliefs and tried to change them, whereas Lack-Two literally only reaffirmed them

I think Looker might have been able to make progress on getting Colress to turncoat sooner (or at least consider it) if he’d just been locked in on that objective from the start, but maybe that’s just wishful thinking. Colress wouldn’t see him as much of a threat, so he’d probably hear Looker out for a lot longer, though he’d still need tangible proof of his hypothesis before he made any decisions

I’ve also just been imagining that scene in the final volume where Colress gets knocked off of Genesect and starts falling, but instead of using Klinklang to stop his fall, he gets caught by Looker who in this scenario was not blown out of the sky and is still around for some reason

A literal “caught you!” moment

[missingno]

tfw you're trying to hunt down people literally trying to summon aliens or something but a former criminal offers you malasadas and who can say no to that?