#throwing my actual self into a fictional universe feels strange. i wasn't born there and don't know how i'd react differently if i was

[relicsongmel]

Alright I figured since I ramble about them so much it's time I made a post talking all about my two darling girls!!! As some of you already know, these are my two (pseudo) self-insert characters; their primary canon is based around the events of Pokemon Black and White and their sequels.

images made using Picrew and Love Nikki (with the latter having the closest I could get to their canon outfits)

Sylvia Goldwood

Gender: female (she/her)

Orientation: pan(demi)romantic demisexual

Birthday: March 10th

Height: 5'8

Hair color: light blonde

Eye color: aqua

Color scheme: light blues, whites, and silvers/grays with occasional darker blues, yellows, greens, and purples

Ethnicity: Unovan (Martha her mother is from Icirrus City, Roger her father is from Driftveil City)

Interests: music (singing, piano, flute, composition), theater, gardening/botany, baking, poetry, dancing, swimming, boating, foreign languages

Fashion is romantic and feminine with frequent floral elements

Born in Nuvema Town and lived her whole life there

Her father was a musician and aspiring composer who died a little over a year after she was born. Her mother is a florist

Inherited Roger's love of music despite never knowing him. Dedicates herself wholly to the musical arts and shows an exceptional level of skill for her age, but develops burnout as a result of her perfectionist nature and harsh self-criticism born from the pressure she felt to succeed. Leaves on a Pokemon journey for a change of pace and to search for the mythical Pokemon Meloetta in hopes of rekindling her inspiration.

Personality: ambiverted, imaginative, deceptively slow to trust, selfless to a fault

Notable Pokemon: Samurott, Cinccino, shiny Gardevoir

Denise Hitoki

Gender: female (she/her)

Orientation: biromantic demisexual

Birthday: September 10th

Height: 5'4

Hair color: blonde

Eye color: dark gray

Color scheme: greens, browns, and other neutral tones with occasional blues and yellows

Ethnicity: half Unovan, half Johtonian (Jennifer her mother is from Icirrus City, Ryuji her father is from Goldenrod City)

Interests: reading, video games/anime, drawing, writing, playing guitar/songwriting, tree climbing, mythology, history

Fashion is minimalist and practical, avoiding unnecessary flourishes

Born in Ecruteak City and lived there with both parents; moved to Aspertia City with her mother at about 13 years old

Both parents are top-class Pokemon breeders who spent their teens and early twenties competing in competitions worldwide; after their marriage her mother starts a business selling various Pokemon care products. Her father assists her but tends to work from home so he can focus on taking care of Denise

Her parents' marriage grows unstable and her father abandons the family when Denise is 10. She and her mother have wildly different responses to this, which becomes a source of conflict as Dena becomes frustrated with her mother's state of denial and Jen is incredibly ill-equipped to deal with her daughter's grief on top of her own while now facing the challenges of being a single mother. Denise has a long depressive period before she leaves on a Pokemon journey to escape her home life and possibly find her father.

Personality: introverted, blunt, logical, fiercely loyal to her loved ones

Notable Pokemon: Ninetales, Glaceon, Zoroark

Other facts about the girls:

Martha and Jen are sisters, making Sylvia and Denise cousins. They are two years apart in age (with Sylvia as the older of the two) and each leaves on her respective journey at 18 years old.

Sylvia started as a Bleach OC and used to be named Lilybell, while Denise was created for an unfinished lineup of characters representing musical keys (she was D minor, hence her name). Both are drastically different characters now than how I envisioned them at the time of their conception.

Sylvia's tag [#little songbird] is a nickname Roger used for her when he was still alive.

Denise's tag [#forest for the tree] is in reference to her last name, which means "solitary tree." It symbolizes her tendency to isolate herself due to recurring abandonment issues as a result of her father's disappearance, even though trees usually thrive in community by nourishing each other through interconnected root systems. However, after letting go of her fears and allowing others into her life (finding her "forest" so to speak), she becomes a source of shelter, strength, and comfort for those around her.

Sylvia can be shortened to Syl and Denise to Dena (pronounced "DEE-nuh"); they have a few other nicknames but those are the most common ones.

The descriptions in this post pertain to the main timeline; that is, Sylvia and Denise's adventures across Unova and a few other regions they travel to with the background details exactly as described above. Several other AUs exist, most notably two PLA AUs (one for each of them), Denise's Paldea AU in which she and her mother move there instead of Unova, and a few different Sylvia AUs in which her confrontation with Team Plasma plays out slightly differently. In addition to these, I occasionally put my girls in the universes of other franchises (Bleach, Stardew Valley and Ace Attorney to name a few), but many details there are far less consistent considering the characters weren't created with those universes in mind. As such I generally don't like to discuss them as much, but they are very fun nonetheless and often help me recontextualize how I view their canon storyline.

And that's the overview! Thank you to anyone who's read this far—my lovely ladies mean the absolute world to me and I hope you found their backgrounds interesting <3