Hoenn Gym Leader Stories - Leonardo

[PrinceOfFacade]

This here is a first-person story of one of the gym leaders I've created for ORAS, Leonardo. He's the third leader I've created so far, but I felt he should be the first I write out. Well, here he is! Listen to him talk!

I. Plague of Heat
I was born in a small cottage right outside of Fortree City. The route where I grew up was always hot. Even amongst the shady trees in Fortree, it was hot. All of Hoenn was so hot. Hell, it still is. I’ve never liked the heat. While all the other kids went out playing, swinging on vines and tree branches (I went to school in Fortree), I was elsewhere struggling to find ways to beat the heat. Even worse, my younger brother had a Torkoal as a pet, and we slept in the same room. I’d wake up almost every night in a deep sweat, open up our room’s only window, and hope a cool breeze flowed in. My childhood was a misery of fire, until I turned ten.

II. Home in Hearthome
My family took a vacation to Hearthome City in Sinnoh, the northernmost region in Nippon. I was in a rapture from how cold it was. Everyone around me was bundled in jean jackets and puffy coats, but I threw mine off, and I ran through the snow laughing and jumping. To be honest, I was never a calm or patient kid. My mother was terrified, yelling at me to put my coat back on, but I didn’t care. The cold was beautiful to me. While visiting Amity Square, I made a snowman of a Snover I saw in one of the contests in Hearthome. I ran over to my family to show them what I had made, but when my brother came over with his Torkoal, the stupid thing sneezed and blew a flame onto my Snover snowman, melting it instantly. I cried for at least half an hour. From that day on, I hated fire, and Fire-type Pokémon.

III. Warmth in A Cold Friend
When we got back to Route 119 in Hoenn, my dad took notice of how much I loved the cold, and he took me to Shoal Cave one weekend to see the Ice-types. I didn’t even know there were Ice-types in Hoenn! While in the cave, I saw a Spheal playing in a small pond; it was so darn cute. It suddenly noticed me and started bouncing my way, and I grew scared. My dad handed me a Great Ball to catch it, but before I could, the Spheal knocked the ball out of my hand and started spinning it on its nose. It was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. Pun definitely intended. After the show, the Spheal tossed the Great Ball back to me, and I decided to catch it. The ball locked instantly; it was as if it wanted me to catch it. At any rate, I was pleased. I took it home, and it became my best friend. I never woke up in a sweat again. I always had pile of snow to play in. Even when that stupid Torkoal showed up causing trouble, my Spheal would Water Gun it until ran off… well, as fast as a Torkoal could go.


Now, 50 years later, I managed to make a gym town of Verdanturf, but I decided not to have the gym within the town. I knew in order for my beloved Ice-types to be at their strongest, they must be able to endure the heat. So, I took my gym north to the Fiery Path, the hottest area in Hoenn, really, in the entire country. My Walrein has never been stronger, and we have never been closer. I owe my entire team everything for all they’ve done for me through the decades. They taught me how to appreciate the little things. They taught me how to accept things for what they are, even fire. They taught me to never give up or give in to the whims of others, but above all else, they taught me the benefit of being calm. They taught me to have patience.


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Well, that's what I got for Leonardo. Feel free to review! Thanks for reading

 

[JX Valentine]

Hi there! Haven't seen you around before, so welcome (back?) to our neck of the woods.

That said, while it's cool that you're creating vignettes for your characters, I'd hate to say it, but as it stands, it's a little too short for what you're trying to do. I'm assuming that each numbered section is meant to be a separate chapter, and if that's the case, then there are rules in place concerning minimum length. Besides that, though, you go extremely quickly through each section to the point where stories that could take up pages of dialogue and action are condensed down to a single paragraph each. This makes it difficult for a reader to connect with the characters you're presenting because everything happens so fast, yet is contained within a block of text.

Beyond that, Leonardo's character right now seems a little ... difficult to swallow. See, you've got him pictured as a serious old man, yet he's saying things like "this is the coolest thing I've ever seen" and "pun definitely intended," both of which feel a little dissonant with the image you've given us. Aside from that, some of the things he's said in his stories seem a little off for someone who appears to be an older gentleman. For example, while it's easy to believe that a young child would cry for a half an hour over a melted snow Pokémon, it's harder to believe that his adult self would hold a grudge against Fire-types for that, even if we're talking about Pokémon characters (who might not be the most mature folks in existence). For another example, we're just never really given a solid explanation for why he hates the heat so much or why he loves the cold. Sure, he says the cold is beautiful, but does the heat make him sick? Does he hate how everything feels sticky and muggy? It seems like, given that it's a huge part of this character, it'd be a big deal—enough to warrant a more thorough explanation, you know?

'Course, as negative as all of that seems, don't get me wrong. It's cool that you're trying to come up with these characters and give them elaborate backstories that lead up to their tenures as gym leaders. It's even cool that you seem to be aiming for a more casual approach, as if someone is interviewing them and asking them how they got to be gym leaders. So the concept's pretty neat, and it looks like you could totally pull it off. You just need to give yourself more room to do it.

That being said, I'm going to lock this for now because it does break the minimum length for chapter fics, but I'd highly encourage you to go back and really add a lot of detail to these stories. You don't really have to make a huge production out of it—not, like, a huge backstory fic that details this character's journey from childhood all the way through to gym leader-hood—but definitely expand on the three moments you've chosen to turn them into full-length stories.

Good luck!