Kate

Short introduction

Kate is a young adult trainer from the Sinnoh region. Her hairstyle was inspired by the in-universe Sailor Moon anime, later in her life, after she grew out her hair. Is a very capable trainer, being the reserve Champion. But she is generally more casual about battles, although she can get really into the process when actually in a good battle.

In casual interactions, she acts generally friendly. Depending on how comfortable she is with the person she can be either friendly-reserved, or friendly with a dash of teasing and joking around. She avoids personal conversations about her family and past. She will gladly rant about her Pokémon though. If asked about personal things or past, she will purposefully leave out details and try to change topic for something else. Gets excited about other people’s Pokémon too and will bombard her conversation partner with questions about them. Generally speaks what she thinks and hates misunderstandings based on avoiding speaking the truth.

Her Piplup is her comfort Pokémon. She can’t sleep if she’s not cuddling him, and often carries him in her arms throughout the day. He helps her manage her stress and anxiety better by allowing her to pet his fuzz. If she can’t hold him for any reason, she will fiddle with the edges of her clothes instead.

Loves shiny rocks and will brag about her small collection if given the chance. Has a very caring side, and can be a bit overbearing when caring about someone else. Also loves to explore creepy abandoned places, usually with her Drifblim as company.

Personality

 Kate makes the impression of a cheerful, somewhat childish person. That is communicated through the way she dresses, talks and behaves. Fidgets a lot – sways her legs when sitting down, sways from side to side while waiting for something. Usually very honest in conversations and says what she thinks, though she tries to remain polite and not hurt someone with her words.

Despite trying to act normal, she will often end up coming across a little weird, be it by being too straightforward, too teasing and not realizing it’s too much, or going on and on about things she’s excited about, though she tries to control all that, especially with strangers. Has the tendency to try getting attention from people she’s interested in by weird methods, like teasing them more than she would someone else, especially “poking them with a stick”, to see how they would react and if they would lose their patience with her antics or not. It’s something she does without realizing, often regretting it heavily afterwards.

Despite liking socializing on the surface, she gets incredibly anxious when doing so, especially with people she wants to be close with. When trying to get close to someone, she behaves unusually – she’s more talkative and asks a lot of questions about the person in question, forces to make herself seem happier than she really is, gets clingy. Tries to desperately hide the negative parts of her personality and herself in general. Because she wants so desperately to be liked and loved, she masks more than she usually does in these moments, until the “breaking point” in the relationship, if that ever comes.

There’s a lot of built up hurt and anger that she’s been bottling up inside her since she was a child and is still refusing to acknowledge. Recently though, containing and ignoring it all is getting harder, and she’s slowly but surely moving towards her big breaking point.

Tries to look cute on purpose. She does like her cute fashion, but it's both a way for her to try and look more friendly and approachable as to not weird people out, as well as a manifestation of her inner desire to look harmless, as a self-preservation tactic. If she's cute, people wouldn't want to hurt her, right?

When upset because of someone, tends to “stop existing”. She stops eating, often end up jst spending her whole time in bed, sulking. It’s not a purposeful way or extreme way of making the other party feel guilty. She does it without intend. Kate ends up feeling incredibly guilty about what happened, even if it wasn’t her fault, and spirals, falling back into her ED somewhat and gets plagued by self-hatred for being “so unlikable and difficult to be with”.

Suffers from frequent nightmares. Usually, sleeping with her Piplup helps her deal with that, but there are still nights she doesn’t get enough keep because of them. On days like that, Kate doesn’t have the energy to do much but the basic things to survive, and usually ends up spending most of the day in bed.

Backstory

Kate was born in Twinleaf town in Sinnoh. She lived in a house with her mother and father. Her father was an office worker who worked in a different city, so Kate didn’t see him often. Kate’s mother was an ex-pop idol, turned housewife. She tended to leave Kate on her own a lot and generally ignored her often since very young age.

When Kate was around 6 and started school, her parents began fighting a lot, first it was small fights that ended fairly quickly, but in about a year grew into much more serious and long fights. Her mother became way more harsh in words and actions, so Kate ended up spending most of her time either playing by herself in a the forest near her house, or at home hiding in her room or closet, and occasionally in other dark places.

When Kate was 11, her dad stopped showing up at home one day, and on that night Kate and her mother had a physical fight that resulted in a lot of bodily harm for Kate and was the first time she tried to physically fight back, instead of just hiding. The next week was quiet, until one morning her mother threw her out of the house and told her to go wherever she wanted. She sold the house in the past week, and once Kate was out, her mother also left immediately with packed bags, leaving Kate behind.

After having a big mental breakdown and crying until late evening, Kate walked through tall grass to the professor’s lab, in hopes of getting a Pokémon, as she saw on TV once that it was one of the ways a child can get one, and she thought having one would help her get around in life. She ended up getting a Piplup, after lying that she just wanted to become a trainer and was not actually completely on her own.

At 13, she received a digging kit. From there, she ended up spending many hours underground, digging up different treasures. She found that she really loves digging up cool things from dirt, so she would go underground very often. Some finds she ended up keeping for a collection, but most of her finds she would sell. With how many treasures she found in the years she spent in Sinnoh, she ended up getting a lot of money. So much, she still lives off of it, along with the money she gets from Pokémon battles. It helped her financially a lot, as before that she struggled with money, only living off her winnings from Pokémon battles.

She roamed the region for several years, basically raising herself along with her Pokémon, and being on the road at all times, living off whatever cash she has at the moment and building her team. She ended up being good at battles, and when she was 17, she beat the current Champion. But once the excitement of doing so wore off, she realized that becoming a Champion was a whole lot of responsibility she simply was not ready for, both in a moral sense and in a sense that paperwork is scary, and refused the title. She remained a reserve Champion instead.

She ended up just travelling around Sinnoh some more, until she has basically been to every nook and cranny of the region, and a lot of unresolved emotional problems began to show themselves once she stopped focusing on the feeling of discovery. She was not ready to deal with that, and since nothing was holding her to Sinnoh, as she didn’t manage to make any meaningful connection, besides a friend who moved to Kalos, she moved to Alola, to try and have another Pokémon journey and get some more serotonin by travelling somewhere she’s never been to before. She took her old team with her and absolutely refused to leave anyone behind or replace anyone with different Pokémon, as every single one of them became her family.

She took the island challenge and almost completed it, but bailed right before the league, since she already knew that she didn’t want to be a Champion anyway. She found a few people there she actually felt very comfortable with and was seriously considering staying there permanently. However, these people ended up leaving the region without telling Kate and without establishing some sort of way of keeping in touch, and it was a big blow at her mental health. That made the old unresolved emotional problems resurface, and she spiraled. She spent almost half a year cooped up in her house, barely leaving it and taking very bad care of herself, most notably almost stopping eating, to the point of losing way too much weight to be considered healthy. She ended up developing an eating disorder during that time that she struggles with occasionally to the current moment.

Her Pokémon actually managed to convince her somehow to take care of herself again and reminded her of what made her forget her unresolved emotions – caring for someone else, if not herself. Because if she doesn’t care for herself and something happens to her, who will take care of her team? Her Blissey was especially adamant about making her eat. She ended up starting to slowly recover and eventually, at the age of 21, left Alola to go to Paldea instead, to have another Pokémon journey to hopefully forget the emotions she doesn’t want to feel, and to recover properly. She thought the best way to help her deal with her ED is fall in love with food all over again, and she heard Paldea is good for that.

She spent several years in Paldea, having a slow and chill adventure, enjoying the scenery and food. It was a very therapeutic experience. Soon enough, Kate felt much better and slightly more emotionally healed, despite her never addressing her emotional problems still. She got even more into cooking while in Paldea than before, and it became her actual hobby.

At the age of 23, she moved away from Paldea, on search of new exploration experiences and in hopes of finding people she can hopefully finally connect with at last. She just wants a place where she can stay and feel at home, rather than isolated and unable to make connections with anyone.

Team

Plapp the Piplup, Male, Lvl 70, Quiet nature.

Kate’s starter. She got him from Professor Rowan at 11 years old. Kate has the strongest bond with him out of anyone else on her team. They imprinted on eachother a lot in terms of behavior - for example, Piplup's idle animation of swaying left and right in a circular motion is now Kate’s "idle animation" too.   He refused to evolve at some point, later Kate realized it was because he wants to keep being small and easy to carry around and help Kate deal with anxiety. She’s very grateful to him for that, though she still sometimes worries her issues forced Plapp not develop his full battling potential. He trained hard to make up for it and is very good in fights, despite his size and being unevolved. A bit of a brat, but a lovable one. Is Kate's comfort Pokémon. Can be often seen being carried by Kate and her fiddling with his flippers. Kate is the only one who's allowed to do that with him. She also cuddles him in bed, as it helps her feel less anxious when falling asleep and helps keeping the nightmares away. 

Comet the Luxray, Male, Lvl 73, Relaxed nature

Kate’s second pokemon. Caught him as a Shinx at the beginning of her journey. She babied him a lot since he was small, and that made him both very protective of Kate and also very spoiled. Will look at you in a scary way if you so much as look at Kate wrong, but is the biggest cuddlebug with people he considers family, i.e. Kate and the team. He’s on the bigger side, but still thinks he's a lap cat and does not care that his weight is crushing Kate, he often rests on her, and grooms her, which also ends up with Kate being covered in fur and slobber. Though really, she's his biggest enabler, despite her unconvincing complaining. Comet sleeps a lot when not in battle. Requires a lot of grooming. You know that tiktok of a lady with a cat "blooping"? "the "he's NOT a predator!" one? that's Kate with Comet.

Vivaldi the Roserade. Female. Lvl 70. Jolly nature.

Kate caught her as a Budew. She was very tiny and young, and most likely not able to take care of herself yet, to the point she couldn't even use her legs properly to walk yet. Whether she was abandoned, or something happened to her family, Kate ended up taking her with her by evening, after spending almost the whole day watching her, to make sure she really has no one and that she really is essentially just easy prey in her state. Has very expressive body language and loves mimicking other people's and Pokémon’s movements. Kate spoiled her a lot too, essentially carrying her as a baby when she was a Budew and going "look! cute! baby!!"

Ribbon the Drifblim. Lvl 71. Female. Docile nature.

One day, Kate was making her way through a field on a very windy day and was trying to figure out the map in her hands, when a Drifloon suddenly latched onto her shoulder and refused to let go. Initially she was just trying not to get blown away by the wind, and decided this random teenager was a safe enough option, since there weren’t any trees nearby, but ended up sticking around when the wind finally died down and they made it to a forest, and Kate now had another Pokémon to give treats and kisses to. Grew up into a very gentle and loving Drifblim. Kate taught her Fly and often uses her to fly around. Ribbon is the reason Kate get a soft spot for ghost Pokémon. They also love to explore abandoned and creepy places together.

Sakura the Blissey. Lvl 69. Female. Bold nature.

One day, during her travels, Kate had an accident while getting through tall grass in a forest and injured her knee, badly enough that she couldn’t really walk. A Chancey saw that and leaped out of the nearby bushes, healing the girl’s injury. Kate didn’t even have the time to react. She thanked the Pokémon, but as she was getting up, the Chancey realized that wait, Kate had more injuries on her. She healed them too, and Kate sheepishly thanked her again, saying that she didn’t have to, since she gets those all the time from travelling. The Chancey was scandalized – what do you mean you get those all the time?! Why don’t you do anything about them?! Before Kate knew what was happening, the Chancey was already nudging an empty Pokeball out of the girl’s bag, basically demanding to be caught already. Kate couldn’t argue with that, and today she has a Blissey who’s very adamant on making sure Kate healthy, because apparently no one else will, not even Kate herself. Kate to this day feels kinda awkward to be taken care of like that, by a Pokémon no less, but she owes her life to her. She basically forced Kate to keep fighting when she ended up with an eating disorder later in life.

Mamoru the Lucario. Lvl 72. Male. Serious nature.

He hatched from an egg she came across at a Pokémon center. It was abandoned, and feeling very personally hurt by that Kate took it with her. He was very affectionate with Kate when he was a Riolu, but after evolving became more aloof and edgy, kind of like a teenager. Kate ended up starting to take taking special care of her Pokémon very seriously when she had him, like learning what specific things specific species of Pokémon need to realize their full potential. Especially got into physical training and exercise for fighting type Pokémon.