#i really love them honestly ahjdvjdbfjhf they're my little guys

[claitea]

so i wanted to try my hand at making fakemon! decided i'd start simple, a regional variant (sort of) so there was an existing pokemon to base it on and i wouldn't have to go from scratch.

ghost pokemon often have dark backstories so i wondered, what if i undid that, what if i changed a pokemon so it was no longer sad or scary? ghosts usually have a reason for coming back to life too, spite or unfinished business, so what about a ghost that moved on from its tragic past and found a happier life?

detailled explanations for these two under the cut!

first off, the stats are the same as yamask and cofagrigus with the def and spdef swapped, like how galarian yamask and runerigus also have the same stats with atk and spatk swapped.

masquerade yamask can only be found behind the theatre in nimbasa city, like other regional variants you can't just form change a normal yamask into one. it evolves into theatrigus after performing in the musical with high friendship. in hoenn and sinnoh this would be a contest instead, and filming a video with it in kalos. no idea what you'd do in the other regions honestly. no theatrigus for you galarians.

the idea is that yamask that liked the theatre were able to move on from their past life by finding a new passion. it keeps its old mask, but it doesnt cry when it looks at it anymore. its just a reminder of a fond memory from a different time, but yamask is just as happy in the present now and no longer has a reason to lament its past life.

theatrigus was tough to design at first. originally i kept trying to make its face look a lot more like cofagrigus, but it looked too scary, not what you'd expect from a playful actor. cofagrigus's dex says it forgot its memories of being human, and runerigus is straight up cursed probably, but theatrigus isn't cursed or spiteful after losing its memories (i assume it doesnt lose them at all). so i figured it was good enough reasoning for theatrigus to look friendlier and cuter because there was no negative force that turned it monstrous. it still looks odd enough for a ghost/fairy type

theatrigus is just "theatre+egregious" like cofagrigus and runerigus, but after googling egregious's definition i found it used to mean "distinguished" instead of "bad". so the name scheme still fits!

bulbapedia says yamask is based on "ba", a part of the egyptian concept of the soul; what makes a person unique, similar to a personality. the ba is depicted as a bird with a human head. theatrigus is the opposite, it looks like a bird usually (yamask looked like one too so i leaned into that), but it can shapeshift to copy the lower body of a person.

it's fairy type because of its shapeshifting, since thats a common thing for fairies to do in fairy tales and myths. shapeshifting is how i decided to incorporate an actor changing roles or costume. the fluffy mist is supposed to look like fairy dust, a feather boa you might associate with old timey famous people, and the way that in cartoons or games a character might suddenly change appearance in a puff of smoke.