Additional reference material for Sylvia and Ink!
Do note Ink's is not 100% accurate for her as a Ninetales (I moved the explorer badge onto the treasure bag) or her moveset (in my actual playthrough I did recently to recreate my lost save file, I ended up swapping my classic Wide Slash for Dark Pulse to take advantage of her higher special attack more (and also because I didn't realize it was AOE until recently!)
Here's some fun facts about their origins as characters:
Ink is initially going to a still a Vulpix while Sylvia is already a Delcatty because I actually had those specific pokemon as figures once! A family friend had a bunch of old pokemon figures they let me have, and while they didn't have Ninetales or Skitty, they DID have Vulpix and Delcatty!
The other reason she takes forever to evolve is because on my one save file as a kid, I could NOT FOR THE LIFE OF ME FIND A FIRE STONE. I was playing without the wiki at the time so I had no idea that evolution items are restricted to spawning in specific dungeons (go to Mystifying Forest and Midnight Forest if you need them!), so I was just looking all over and having no luck. I literally got to level 96 with her and SHE WAS STILL NOT EVOLVED
They are both loosely based off a save file I had as a kid, wherein I got Vulpix naturally thru the personality quiz (multiple times, too, since I remember having another save where my partner was actually Eevee! btw don't pick Eevee as your partner unless you want a challenge. Runaway makes them panic and run off if their health gets low, creating an awful scramble to get them back before they get themselves into trouble), and then I had my bestie at the time either play thru the quiz herself to be given a pokemon, or choose one manually, and that would be my partner! Either way, that pokemon was Skitty!
Sylvia's personality only loosely pulls from what my friend was like, though, since I want her as a character to be more like the in-game partner character, both in terms of canon dialogue and my actual gameplay. Plus I don't want to straight up recreate a real person! She is more meant to represent the kind of friendship we had itself.
Ink is meant to be sort of like if a snapshot of myself as teen was actually isekai'd into this other world, with the power to do shit like breathe fire and have a job and not live with an abusive asshole stepfather. Despite being younger than I am now (Ink is about 19 at the start of the story; I am currently 26), Ink is meant to be what I think I might be like if I'd been pulled from the situation that still torments me waaaaay earlier.
