#rb heather

[thunderin-brainstorm]

apparently there was a pokemon day recently and i realized i never posted this

[pokedokiecentral]

Artfight Attack I (Mud) did on @thenamesblurrito ‘s RB Heather and her little buddy Orion!

I love her design. This trainer punches birds.

[buzzards-sticky-fingers]

poor RB, not only does she have all those scars, someones gone and stolen her clothes!

pfft

actually that is something to touch on, she's got very little self consciousness! the scars are more inconvenient than anything, in how gingerly she had to treat them for them to heal and how she's lost feeling or skin elasticity in those areas. otherwise she doesn't give a damn about how they look! she's hardly alone in that either, plenty of people in Hisui have dramatic-looking scars, injuries, or deformities. people may gossip about her looks, but depending on public opinion of the day they may praise her heroism surviving injury in the line of duty or scorn her for being the kind of reckless, dangerous person to hunt monsters

on top of that, since i'm taking some elements of Japanese culture for Jubilife, the entire village washes in a communal sento, a bathhouse. RB has to get used to being naked around other people anyways (something which she's not very perturbed by to begin with tbh), and also needs to get accustomed to bathing out in the wild. it takes days to travel across Hisui, there's no quick and easy popping back to Jubilife for a wash after sprawling in the mud in the Crimson Mirelands

anyways. i know this is a joke about the ref i drew but have some tidbits of lore for free

[thunderin-brainstorm]

i go wild every time i see art of characters with their belongings spread out around them, especially as a before/after comparison. it just really speaks to me for some reason. then i realized i could do that myself!

so here's RB the day she fell into the ocean off Prelude Beach and, almost one year later, RB the day she climbs Mount Coronet to fight some gods

also did not realize it til midway thru but her face in the second one is rly giving lucifer huh? they've both got an uneasy relationship with god so it fits

[thunderin-brainstorm]

a researcher should record research notes right? gotta fill in that Pokédex

aka i drew them all once vaguely canonish and so now i'm exploring how to adapt them to my style/interpretation

featuring Gallant (and Darling)

[thunderin-brainstorm]

other half of this post! RB's "backup" team, all of whom she freely switches between when necessary. it keeps her extremely busy caring for all twelve, especially when she can't take them out all at once, but she can't bear to give them up. of all the Pokémon she's caught and trained for research, it's these she'd like to keep

JJ, her most specialist little boy in the world. she found him as an Eevee in a distortion and he nearly threw himself into a Pokéball just to escape the storm. he's whip-smart and full of energy, and RB sometimes can only barely keep up with his drive to work. but that never stops him from wanting cuddles!

Gumby, dumb as a post but utterly invaluable. RB likes to call him her slug that can defy god, for surely no creature this brainless should exist. for an Alpha, he's very amiable, mostly because all he wants in life is to eat sand. it can be a challenge training and caring for him when she doesn't have much experience with invertebrates, but as long as he can munch on dirt, he's happy

Teletraan, her iPad baby. this thing can and will burn down a village if bored, so it's a good thing RB has bought a bunch of time-displaced appliances for it to play in. she's rather fond of the utility of having a fridge, and also a little sad. what's it like to be a creature uniquely suited to living in circuitry, born centuries before the advent of a habitat it was practically made for?

Miss Monster, her tank. after stumbling upon her in the middle of the Avalugg fiasco, RB knew this beast would be an incredible specimen to study. immediately being exiled kind of put a damper on that, but the huge Alpha adjusted surprisingly well to being part of a team. she's certainly the most powerful, and carries herself with a confidence even haughty Niner can't match

Dopey, not only the most pathetic Alpha, not only the most pathetic Dragon-type, but just the most pathetic animal RB has ever encountered in general. even when he attacked her on sight as a wild Sliggoo, she was cooing at him for being a sad little critter. now that he's grown, he's much more capable of being an intimidating fighter, but would honestly rather curl up in his shell and cower behind RB

Milkshake, her ethereal overseer. he accompanied her quite often as a Vulpix when she explored the Icelands, and after the sky went red he decided to follow her forever. RB's pretty sure he thinks of himself as her minder, watching over her physical and emotional wellbeing with the uncanny perception of a fae creature. he loves to dog her heels until she surrenders to cuddles, hops around to dance with him, or finds a human to talk about her troubles

[thunderin-brainstorm]

it's not easy having a name that's just two letters of an alphabet that isn't used in this world! the vast majority of people RB meets in Hisui speak Sinjori, the modern descendant of a former common language called Ranseigo, aka fantasy Japanese. Hisuian Sinjori remains close enough that the Galaxy Team personnel from Kanto, Johto, and Hoenn can still easily communicate with them. while apparently Arceus was kind enough to brain-blast her with the ability to speak Sinjori upon getting dumped into this world (but not the ability to read or write it, dammit), that doesn't change the fact that RB's name is, uh, going to be a little lost in pronunciation for most Sinjori speakers. she doesn’t usually try to correct them, but it takes her a hot minute to recognize when someone’s calling for her like this

Professor Laventon speaks Galrish of course, which is something she doesn’t figure out until a good three or four months into her stay in Jubilife. lucky for her, Galrish is identical to English, so it’s nice to have someone she can speak her native language with again (even if Galrish doesn’t use the Latin alphabet, still rendering her functionally illiterate). unluckily, something about the British accent does make RB feel like he’s calling her Arby instead. she knows that there’s no real difference in pronunciation, that she really can’t begrudge him or anyone in Hisui for not saying her name precisely as she wants them to, but this small detail in a veritable ton of general cultural differences is still a little disheartening regardless…

until she meets Ingo and is DELIGHTED when this stranger not only pronounces her name perfectly despite the Sinjori, he also automatically and effortlessly executes the smoothest handshake she’s ever experienced (which honestly isn’t a high bar, as she’s instinctively tried for a handshake with just about everyone she’s met in Hisui and been met with blank awkward looks every time). it’s a very gratifying moment of validation that is only somewhat lessened by the fact she is at the moment drugged to the gills from a Turtwig’s spore attack and is struggling to stay awake, but that’s neither here nor there

[thunderin-brainstorm]

RB's "main" team! or rather, the set of six partners she lets Kamado think is her main team. considering Galaxy Team's pretty strict limit on six Pokemon per person, it's difficult for her to openly train and travel with the twelve Pokemon she's really bonded with, so she'll switch out different combinations of six in the field to get them all properly exercised

Crosshairs, her beloved starter. loyal, skilled, chill, and prone to trying to roost on her head despite the fact he's long outgrown that particular perch. RB would be dead a million times over without Crosshairs at her side, and she struggles with the feeling that she's endangering him by relying on him to protect her

Darling, her favorite menace. he's not as troublesome as she expected for a Ghost type, but that doesn't mean he won't take every opportunity to hang out in her shadow, as it's the best place from which to launch a prank. even though he seems lazy and flippant, he's genuinely one of her most reliable partners

Niner Niner, her eldritch creature. she caught this Alpha on Firespit Isle, ending nearly three hundred years of the fox’s proud freedom. she’s a haughty, jealous thing, and RB spent months wary to turn her back on Niner for fear she’d sink her teeth into the back of her neck. now, that pride seems to have pushed her to instead strive to become the most powerful and beautiful member of RB’s team

Orion, her anxiety buddy. rescued from a distortion, it’s a creature stranded away from its proper home just like she is and has latched onto her as one of the few humans not unsettled by its artificial nature. when it's not jittering with its own nerves, it's trying to soothe RB's by serving as a squeeze ball

Hunkules, the meanest, stubbornest, hungriest beast RB has ever wrangled. she's an absolute monster on and off the battlefield, the Alpha queen of Sand's Reach who never exactly learned to stop seeing RB as lunch. she's grumpy at the best of times, unless she gets the chance to thrash other Pokemon, and RB is pretty sure the only reason Hunk obeys her is because she's learned she gets more opportunities to fight when she listens to her puny human trainer

Gallant, her aloof knight. this young Alpha is a dramatic anime swordsman at heart who nearly decapitated her in defense of his colony in the Snowpoint Temple. he's a later addition to her team and sometimes still gets irritated by the stupid antics of her other Pokemon, but his skill and focus have been impressively honed as he learned to ignore the rest of them to hear RB's commands