File 8: Artists of Hoenn
Before anything else, let me take this opportunity to (very belatedly) thank everyone who voted for
Humans of Hoenn in the 2015 Fanfiction Awards! I’m really happy that it did well, and I’m really grateful for all the support!
And with that, here’s a new file! I can confidently say that this is the most self-indulgent file I’ve written—you’ll see why rather quickly, haha. It’s a topic I suddenly had the urge to write about, and with a few past conversations I’ve already written, it seemed like a good subject to tackle and make a file out of. Here’s hoping it’s still okay though!
File 8: Artists of Hoenn
“Drawing is my passion. I can’t count how many sleepless nights I’ve spent finishing a portrait, and how many more I’ve spent thinking about finishing a portrait. If I had it my way, I would spend the rest of my life drawing and drawing and making sure I get one of my pieces featured in this museum. Unfortunately, the reality can’t be further away from that.”
“Why is that?”
“My parents don’t want me to pursue drawing. They say that I won’t get any money from my portraits and that I won’t succeed in life if I don’t become a trainer. Actually, they’ve forbidden me to go to this museum—right now they think I’m training in Route 121 to get ready for when I leave for my journey in two weeks. So I’m trying to get as many last-minute visits here before then.”
“Can you tell me about how you caught your—”
“Wait a sec, I thought you said you wanted to talk about anything under the sun? Why is the subject Pokémon?”
“Well, I just thought—“
“Well you thought wrong. I feel like we don’t know how to talk about non-Pokémon topics anymore! You know how many trainers know that I like making portraits of Hoenn landscapes out of crayon? Probably five or six. You know how many trainers know that I caught my Roselia while I was in a cast? Probably more trainers than I’ve ever met.”
“The other day I bumped into this Ace Trainer who was fond of making crayon portraits of Hoenn scenery. I even got the chance to see one, and calling it beautiful is a huge understatement. I didn’t think of Slateport beach as picturesque until I saw how she drew it—it was that good.
“It was so good that I bought myself a notebook and started sketching again. I stopped drawing right before I started my journey, thinking that I wouldn’t have time to draw when I’m traveling all the time. I didn’t think much of it, but after seeing her portrait and hearing her talk about how she feels most in her element when making them, it really made me fall in love with sketching again. I’ve only had this notebook for a couple of days and I’ve already made sketches of each member of my team. It feels like my love for it never left me and it was just waiting for me to let it in again.”
“At the end of each day, I always make it a point to write in my journal. Whether it’s about a battle I had that day or a conversation I had with my Pokémon, I make sure to jot them down in this here notebook. It’s become a habit now, and I feel like my night’s incomplete if I don’t write at least a page’s worth of ramblings.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, is there any reason why you developed that habit?”
“Well, it bore out of a need to relax and wind down after a long and hard day. I’m sure you can agree with me that being a trainer isn’t easy, and it doesn’t take much for the pressure to get to you. So it helps to have something to do that takes your mind off all the stress. People watch contests, decorate their Secret Bases, gamble off their money in the Game Corner, and do so much frivolous stuff just to tune out all the complexities of being a trainer. But me? Well, I found it’s as simple as writing in my journal.”
“I’m in the middle of writing a novel. I’m taking a short walk—or, at least, it’s supposed to be short, but eh, whatever—to clear my head a little, but after this, it’s back to the writing board.”
“What’s the novel about?”
“It’s a fantasy adventure story that revolves around the hold items that boost the power of Pokémon moves of a specific type. I thought, what if they were held by humans, and they were able to use Pokémon moves of that type? Like, the main character is a young girl with the Magnet item, and a bulk of the early parts of the novel is her discovering and learning how to use her newfound powers. She’s mentored by her older brother, who has the Sharp Beak item and has already mastered Flying-type moves. And they’re on this quest to find the wielders of the other items with one of the wielders being the main antagonist.
“It’s still a barebones idea, but at least there’s something there. And if nothing else, it’s a great break from my badge quest.”
“How so?”
“I got my first six badges over the course of two months. I didn’t even realize that was fast until Juan, Wallace’s mentor who was running the Sootopolis Gym at that time, asked me about it after I beat him. He then told me that I should slow down a bit or else I’d feel burned out. I didn’t think much about it back then, but the burned out feeling crept in real quickly after that. Battling suddenly felt dry to me, and I remember this one battle I forfeited because I didn’t have the energy to finish it.
“So I took a step back, and now I’m putting my energy into this novel. In the same way that I’m unsure of where to take the novel’s plot, I’m unsure of where this break will take me. But the important thing is that I’m excited to be excited about something again.”
“I always got the feeling that contests were lacking for me. I love being a coordinator, sure, but I felt like there was something missing, something that didn’t make it as fulfilling as it should be. I kept on losing in contests because of it, but looking back, all those losses were worth it since it led to finding out what that missing piece was.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, what was it?”
“Myself. I realized that the reason I wasn’t completely jiving with contests was because I was so removed from my Pokémon whenever they were making their appeals. My only part in a contest is similar to that of a trainer in battle—the commander, the director. But within me, I knew that there was a huge desire to perform with my Pokémon, to be up there on the stage with them and dazzle the audience with our performance. It’s something I never thought I’d be able to do until a friend of mine told me about Pokémon Showcases. Have you heard of them?”
“Nope, can you tell me more about them?”
“Well, they’re these contest-like competitions that are getting some attention in the Kalos region. It’s similar to the appeal section of contests, but instead of the Pokémon doing all the work, the trainer, called a Pokémon Performer, has to weave herself into the performance as well. After seeing some Showcases on TV, it looks and sounds like what I’ve been looking for all this time as it feels like the best way for me to express my love for both Pokémon and performance.
“So now, I’m saving up money to move to Kalos, which limits me to only watching contests these days instead of participating in them. All of it’s going to be worth it, though—I’ll be the best Pokémon Performer Kalos has ever seen!”
“I’ve set up my Secret Base here. It’s a bit secluded, but it’s perfect for me coz it gives me some much-needed privacy.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, why did you set up your Secret Base somewhere this private?”
“Uh, it’s a bit embarrassing, but…okay, promise not to laugh, all right?”
“I promise.”
“Well, I come back here whenever I want to practice my singing. Sure, battling is awesome and mountain climbing is even better, but I’ve always had a soft spot for music. When I was a kid I would sing to every song that came on the radio, and my momma would tell me, ‘You keep on singing, lil’ Mike. My lil’ Mike was always meant to hold a mic!’ And that never left me, so I kept on singing and singing even if there was no one to hear me.
“Problem is, there was never anyone who wanted to hear me, since no one puts ‘hiker’ and ‘singing’ in the same sentence. So I got the next best thing—a private place where no one would be bothered to hear my singing because all the Whismur in this cave have the ability Soundproof. Here I can sing to my heart’s content, and I’d finally get to be the singer Momma wanted me to be, even if it isn’t exactly what she envisioned.”
“My biggest pet peeve is when someone asks me for a battle while I’m in the middle of writing a song. Ugh, it’s the worst. One moment I’m on top of the world, the next all the inspiration that I had to scavenge from the depths of my mind disappears in a flash. And all because some cocky trainer wants to display his cockiness in a battle. Never mind that I clearly have a guitar and a notebook out and my Poké Balls stored in my bag. Never mind that I’m in a secluded-enough area in routes when I’m in a songwriting mood. No, it’s always ‘battling first, everything else second’ for those trainers.
“I swear, I’m this close to quitting being a trainer and becoming a full-time songwriter. And I can tell you that I’ve mulled over that exact same thought a dozen times. What’s stopping me, you ask? There’s probably a one to one thousand ratio of singers to trainers here in Hoenn, maybe even one to ten thousand. Right now songwriting is my getaway from training, but I’m going to have a stupidly hard time going anywhere if it’ll become my entire life. But damn, I would give anything to just write songs for a living. Can you imagine how amazing that would be?”
“Wait, so you’re telling me that you’ve interviewed hundreds of people around Hoenn, you have all those stories, and all you’re doing with them is sharing them online?”
“Well, yeah, that’s my entire project in a nutshell.”
“Dude, what the heck? You have enough material to make dozens of movies! Those two grunts from rival teams that became a couple? That’s a huge romcom blockbuster in the making. That mother-and-daughter duo who fought in the tournament? That’s enough drama for a movie trilogy. And those interviews you did about the closure of the Game Corner? Man, I’m getting giddy just thinking about all the possibilities.
“I swear, I’d stop being a trainer in a heartbeat if I was given the chance to make movies out of your material. All those movies I’d get to film and direct—that beats being a trainer any day.”
“A few days ago, I got a call from the talent agent of this new musical that I sent a video audition for, and she told me to fly out to Unova next week so I can audition to the directors in person.”
“That’s great! Congratulations and break a leg!”
“Thanks, but I don’t think I’m going to the audition.”
“Oh, can I ask why?”
“Honestly, I’m trying to find a good answer for that question myself. When I sent the audition tape, I was working under the assumption that it would get rejected. I just wanted to scratch that itch I got when I saw the call for auditions. And, well, I wanted to prove to myself that, hey, I tried out for a part and it didn’t work out, so I made the right choice of sticking to being a trainer rather than pursuing theatre. But fate decides to mess with me and makes it work out, and now I’m at a loss for what to do.
“On one hand, I love theatre. I feel like it’s what I was born to do, and I’ve pictured myself on the stage not because of my battling prowess but because I’m playing one of my many dream roles. But on the other hand, I can’t just turn away from my duties as a trainer. I’ve already made my way up to becoming a gym trainer, something I’ve put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears in. Your father has been a really accommodating leader, and I’ve learned so much working under him that I’m seeing trainerhood less as a profession and more as a lifestyle.
“A part of me just wants to ignore the audition so that I don’t have to make my life even more complicated than it already is. But that itch just won’t stop being itchy, and I know that if my younger self would have a say, I would jump on the opportunity in a heartbeat. All of this might end up with me flipping a coin and letting fate decide. I honestly don’t know.”
“What’s the most interesting thing you’ve noticed from the challengers you’ve battled?”
“I immediately know when I’m battling an artist-trainer—that is, a trainer who also pursues an art. These people have figured out that battling, at its very core, is a complex mixture of various arts. It is a performance first and foremost, with each trainer directing their Pokémon with each command. But it is also a narrative, one where each trainer tries to weave the ending into their favor. And it is a visual spectacle—every move a Pokémon makes is a treat to everyone witnessing the battle, which is what makes watching them on TV very enjoyable.
“Because battling is an art, it takes a skilled artist to perfect, to bring out the intricacies that make battling grand. Being an artist-trainer myself, it’s a breath of fresh air when I get the privilege to battle another artist-trainer—they always treat the battle with a certain meticulousness that makes it worthwhile.
“It’s a hard thing to balance for sure—being a gym leader and a performer at the same time is incredibly tedious for me, and I am aware that the desire to train can easily overpower the desire to practice art and vice versa. But I strongly urge all trainers to try their hand in any art form. I guarantee you that you will see a positive change in the way you battle when you draw or write or perform or make music. It’s a hard thing to explain, but every artist-trainer knows what I’m talking about, and I can assure you that any artist-trainer will say that dedicating time to finding the balance between being an artist and being a trainer is worth it.”
![[Imaginative]:[Clockwork]](/data/avatars/m/192/192875.jpg?1525616141){kind=avatar}
