The All-Purpose PokéMeme!

[islandshore]

THE ALL PURPOSE POKéMEME

We've had plenty of memes about our characters in the past, so why not something a little different? After all, Pokémon is a huge part of what makes Route so special.

Feel free to use this meme to:

- Talk about your characters' teams!
- Plot for Pokémon CR
- Discuss any headcanon you have about certain species or Pokémon in general
- Discuss ideas for Pokémon related shenanigans
- Take suggestions if you're struggling with a Pokémon's personality, what Pokémon to get your character, or anything else!

The sky's the limit, folks, so have at it!

Comments

[friendyousohard]

Twilight's Team (Overview): Twilight's philosophy that she used to gather her Pokemon can basically be summed up in one sentence.

Preparation through specialization.

Each of her Pokemon has one thing it is very, very good at, like taking blows without even noticing (Sapphire), special based offense (Starswirl, Tesla), physical based offense (Megasoma), and status infliction (Aristo). Almost all of them can do other things as well (except Megasoma, who is all physical might, no surprises unless you count some attack types) but each of them has their specialty and usually when Twilight sends them out they're primed for that role.

The exceptions to the above rule are Spike, Apus, and Echo. Spike escaped Twilight's pigeonholing by being her all-arounder, her jack of all trades. Apus was a parting gift from Celestia, and she still hasn't been able to make a real spot in her team for the poor Sigilyph. And Echo... Capturing Echo was kind of an accident, and while she does have quite a bit of promise as a harrier and speed demon, Twilight's still a bit wary of bats, so she hasn't really gotten anywhere yet.

In short, Twilight's team is based on having the exact right answer to any given situation, each in a different Pokemon. Enemy has a powerful attacker who's weakness is physical blows? Time for Megasoma! Need to hold back the enemy for a while to prep her strategy? It's Sapphire's turn! Etc. It's not exactly foolproof, but with Spike waiting in the wings to take over when one of the others can't do its job right (Sapphire trying to tank a fighting type, for instance) and a couple of newbies just waiting to find their place in her team, it can't be denied that she's got an answer for most things Johto can throw at her.

Interactions with Twi: There's not a single one of Twilight's roster that isn't affectionate towards her. And it's no surprise, given the friendly, caring way she treats them. Most are also rather protective of their physically frail, scrawny little trainer, but the ones who understand how intelligent she is can't help but admire it (particularly Starswirl). In turn, Twilight tends to impress upon her team the importance of strategy, and knowing where their strengths lie and what to do if they get over their heads. She also does her best to teach them the importance of friendship and working together, natch. Some of them take better to her lessons than others, but more on that further down.

Headcanon: I base most of my assumptions on the games, some on stuff I really liked in the anime and movies, and a lot else on "hey, wouldn't it be cool if..."

Twilight's Pokemon are varying levels of intelligent, with Starswirl being a super-genius because, well, Kadabra, Tesla being quite intelligent but not able to communicate it well, Spike and Apus being relatively smart, Megasoma being at about the level of a college fratboy, and the others being more animalistic, though they can all recognize emotions and usually understand what's being said to them, though only the more intellectual ones can usually follow a conversation going on without them being directly involved. Even Sapphire the Snorlax, who evolved when she accidentally fell on a poor Treeko and smothered it into unconsciousness (Fluttershy was horrified) can usually tell when she's being addressed or someone's upset with her.

I don't really go for name-speak either. Usually I just have them make the sort of noises I imagine animals of their type making.

Individual personalities

[friendyousohard]

Spike the Dragonite: The chillest of chill. The broest of bros. The most laid-back, no-worries dragon you'll ever meet. Spike will almost never display any amount of anger or unhappiness, and can often be found just sitting back or curled up while Twilight's and Fluttershy's other Pokemon run around. He's also more or less the heart of the team, eager to lend a hand (or... claw) whenever the situation calls. If anyone needs help, he's got it, whether it be fetching wood for the campsite or standing guard while the others sleep. If someone were to actually talk to him, which doesn't really happen since he doesn't tend to say much, he'd usually sound like he was perpetually stoned.

Until Twilight orders him to move, or one of the others is placed in danger, at which point the concept of inertia suddenly comes into play... with a vengeance. A Spike at rest tends to stay at rest, but a Spike in motion tends to rip you several new ones. There's a reason the bulky dragon is still Twilight's right hand Pokemon, and anyone who underestimates him because of his out of battle attitude is in for a rude awakening. Of course, he also doesn't tend to fight unless he absolutely has to, since the little ones need their exercise and all, but despite appearances, he's always ready to jump in if needed.

Starswirl the Mustachioed Kadabra: If Spike is the heart of Twilight's team, and her right hand, then Starswirl is her left hand, and the brains. Outside of battle, he's Twi's assistant, keeping her reading binges and the notes she takes organized, as well as acting as a sounding board for her ideas. Though he's respectful of his trainer and generally modest about his own abilities, Starswirl also has very high standards for the other Pokemon and does not suffer fools well. He's as prickly as Spike is laid back, and often the big dragon has to calm him down if one of the other members of the team has done something phenomenally stupid (or just irritating).

In battle, Starswirl is very much a thinking fighter, always planning out battles like chess matches, and sometimes thinking several moves in advance. This, naturally, goes perfectly with Twilight's own battle style, so the two tend to make a very great team. He doesn't always deal with changing situations well, but as long as things are going more or less according to plan, he can iron out a few wrinkles here and there.

Megasoma the Heracross: The muscle of the team, Megasoma is a brash, tough-talking, big-egoed bug who has no qualms about showing off what he thinks is the most manly display of awesomeness ever achieved, himself. While not stupid, he tends to think with his instincts, and will gleefully charge into battle even if the odds are completely against him, certain that he can take on anything. He even tries to goad the other members of the team into fighting him sometimes, though when he gets too bad about that Spike tends to set him straight with a good walloping.

In battle, Megasoma has just one mode. Attack! Attack! Attack! He will keep barreling forward with the strongest moves in his arsenal (or whichever ones Twilight told him to use) until either the enemy goes down or he does. And with the sheer raw physical strength he's got, it's been the enemy more often than not, which of course just strengthens his ego. After combat, he tends to become borderline insufferable to the point where Starswirl sometimes has to be ordered to not Psychic him into unconsciousness.

He's in a relationship with Fluttershy's Butterfree, Scoots, which basically amounts to Scoots believing he's every awesome thing he's said he is and wanting to be just like him, and him believing she actually can be just like him, which is obviously the best thing in the world to be. Obviously.

Tesla the Future Starship Enterprise Magneton: Tesla is... strange. It obeys Twilight just like the others, in and out of battle, but it almost never seems to associate with the other Pokemon, it seems to have no interest in things outside of battle and staring at books and computer screen with text on them, and no one, not even Starswirl, can understand what it says when it deigns to speak. The result is kind of creepy, and most of the Pokemon give Tesla a wide berth, which seems to depress it. It's hard to tell for sure though.

Tesla is utterly merciless in combat, going all out even against much weaker enemies. This callousness only makes the other Pokemon even more unnerved, though Tesla's never attacked anything but opponents. The fact that it's fond of using Thunder Wave to paralyze them before shocking and blasting them into submission probably doesn't help.

Fortunately, Twilight herself quite likes Tesla, and tends to dote on the floating magnet collection whenever it deigns to be out of its ball. As a result, it tends to stick to her like glue. She keeps it away from the Pokegear though, for safety reasons.

[friendyousohard]

Sapphire the Lump Snorlax: She is rubber, you are soft and squishy. Whatever you do bounces off her and then she falls over and you go squish now.

Sapphire is the quintessential Snorlax. Absurdly huge, insanely heavy, lumbering, lazy, and essentially a walking (when she actually chooses to get up and walk, anyway) combination of mattress and wrecking ball. She may or may not have narcolepsy, it's really hard to tell with Snorlaxes. She does make pretty much the world's best bed, though, and doesn't ever seem to roll over in her sleep. Twilight takes advantage of this a lot while on the road.

In battle, Sapphire just tends to take whatever the enemy dishes out, then lumber over and fall on them. It is very, very rare that an enemy gets up after that, and trainers have been known to have borderline heart attacks after seeing their precious Pokemon have a Snorlax fall on them. If for some reason that tactic doesn't work, she might crush the enemy in a bearhug, slam herself into them at speeds she should not be able to move at (Giga Impact is horrifying), or worst of all, use Rollout. The last is not all that dissimilar to having a steamroller suddenly coming towards you.

She has virtually no relationships with the other Pokemon, largely because she doesn't really do anything or say anything to them. She just lumbers around, eats a ridiculous amount of food, then falls over and lets everyone sleep on her. It's almost hard to say if she even has a genuine personality, really. Unless "Snorlax" counts.

Apus the Sigilyph: Apus is kind of the odd one out among Twi's Pokemon. Originally belonging to her beloved teacher, Princess Celestia, Apus was very protective and warmhearted towards her first trainer, and this carried over to Twilight when Celestia left. Apus seems to have made it her personal mission to keep Twilight safe from harm, no doubt feeling that's what Celestia would have wanted.

The problem is, Twilight doesn't really know what to do with her. Not only is her spot on the team rather effectively filled with Starswirl, Apus is also a constant reminder of Celestia vanishing on her, and frankly Twilight's still not over that, and might not ever really be. She's tried to train Apus a bit, but she just can't ever figure out how to integrate her with the rest of the party.

Likewise, the rest of her Pokemon don't really dislike Apus, but they don't really hang out with her either. She's pretty effectively alone, and while she doesn't seem to mind that much, it just makes it harder for her to find her niche. Twilight kind of wishes it could be otherwise, but she's really just at a loss. It's an issue that doesn't really seem to have much of an apparent resolution.

Echo the Hair Ornament Zubat: Echo's capture was a complete accident. While trying to determine the effects of the Repel items in Union Cave, Twilight found herself mobbed by Zubat when she tried not using Repel at all. Most of them were driven off by Starswirl, but one got stuck in her hair and just would not get out, leaving her to eventually have to capture it. Thus did Echo, the hair-loving bat, join the team.

Echo is obsessed with hair, particularly Twilight's hair. She will gleefully fly down and make herself a little nest on her trainer's head if she's not stopped. She likes other peoples' hair too, and tends to prefer long hair to short in general, but her trainer's hair is the best hair.

Ironically enough given how her relationship with Twilight started off, Echo is an extremely eager to please type. She gleefully flies into combat whenever Twi allows her to, determined to both grow in strength and to impress her trainer. There is the slight problem, however, of Twilight being afraid of bats. Fluttershy's been helping with this, but it's still not quite a cured thing, and Echo just doesn't seem to get that her suddenly swooping in and landing on her trainer is going to cause minor freakouts. As a result, Echo hasn't really gotten the training she really should be, but as long as her trainer praises her, she doesn't mind.

Echo is very much a pestering type of fighter, preferring to fly outside of reach and confuse the enemy before zipping in to bop them with an attack and then zipping out again. Part of this is just because she's a small, weak type, but she also seems to really enjoy that style of battle.

Aristo the Servine: Aristo is Twilight's first foray into getting the type of super bred Pokemon that show up in Route sometimes. His vast array of egg moves made him competitive right out of the egg, and she's been grooming him for a spot on the team since. He's as nose-in-the-air as any Snivy evolution, but he's more of a rogue than a noble in his attitude, being a big fan of practical jokes and the like.

Twilight got him to be a tough-to-KO status inducer, and boy did she get it. Aristo loves poisoning his enemies, pumping up his own stats, and finally smacking them down when the gap between him and them has widened to really insane levels. He doesn't seem to consider it a proper win unless he's made his opponent look like a complete fool.

Megasoma despises him and his way of fighting, and will have nothing to do with him. Aristo thinks Megasoma is an overgrown, underbrained brute, so that suits him just fine. He gets along okay with the rest, though he's mostly a self-possessed type. Still, he'll always hang out with anyone willing to praise his suave, elegant (or so he thinks) self.