Tag: Acerola

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Timeskip Selene & Acerola!

Selene is a professional photographer, specializing in spirits, haunted locations, and uneasy feelings of liminality. She’s always cheerfully on the hunt for the perfect auras of dread for her inspiration. Her work has been described by critics as “unsettling, yet unable to look away from”.

Selene and her twin brother, Elio, traded the champion title back and forth for a few years, until both found other careers they preferred, whereupon the title passed to Acerola! When not defending her title, she can be found in her garden, working at the library, or telling ghost stories to the neighborhood kids.

They’re married 🙂

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I know I literally just a few days ago posted a nice long detailed outline of my Alola protag families and said “Now finally I have them figured out” well THAT WAS A LIE. Thanks to the evil, evil influence of some friends I couldn’t get the idea of protag/ultra recon squad out of my brain and just doing more with the URS anyways, so UH now I guess Dulse and Zossie are also there. Sometimes.

I kind of liked the idea that for Ultra Megalopolan culture, when someone’s life/work involves a lot of travel like theirs does, it’s very common to, rather than settle down with a steady partner, be the “part-time” third (or fourth!) to a relationship involving people who live less transitory lives. It settles the desire for romantic and/or physical partnership, without leading into some of the difficulties that can arise from long distance relationships or one person constantly coming to and fro while the other feels like they’re always waiting for them. Obviously everyone has their own preferences and situation that works for them, but this scenario happens enough in UM that it’s considered typical! Very normal for kids to grow up with two/three full-time parents and another parent who comes and goes but is still an important part of the relationship.

With that in mind, Dulse for a long time had that kind of relationship with Anabel & Thorton, spending half his time in UM and always being sure to visit them in Sinnoh when his work took him to Earth. (Less typically, his daughter with the two of them, Carola, travels with him most of the time rather than staying in Sinnoh with her other parents, so she has Dulse’s surname and considers herself more in-touch with her UM side rather than her Earthling side.) Back in Alola, Zossie had grown close with Acerola & Selene and while she too wasn’t “full-time” in a relationship with them, they had a well established dynamic together as well as a daughter (raised by Acerola & Selene). Dulse began spending more time in Alola once Gladion established a program focused on rehoming and safely capturing UBs, working closely with the URS, and during this time found himself growing closer with the Aether president and his husband. It had been over a decade since he’d spent any meaningful interaction with Elio or Gladion, and he found he got along very well with the both of them. Zossie teased him endlessly about how he’d found some Alolans he liked since he wasn’t satisfied with just his partners up in Sinnoh, and he brushed her off until some Moment of Realization that he actually had grown fond of them as well (as had Carola). One thing leads to another, and now Dulse has two families he spends his time with, and Zossie is very smug. It’s definitely the type of relationship that’s unconventional on Earth but quite typical in Ultra Megalopolis, but everyone involved is happy and satisfied!

TLDR: now Dulse is a part-time third to Elio/Gladion and Zossie is the same to Selene/Acerola and I shuffled/added to their kids to accommodate this. Primrose & Enzian now have a baby brother named Osmund (after the scientific name of pepper dulse algae), and Eugenia’s now the name of the baby of the family, while the middle daughter has been renamed to Vallisia “Valli” (after the name for freshwater eelgrass, as opposed to Zossie’s name coming from the marine kind). FINALLY I decided that with this it made more sense for Weiss’s URS parent to be someone else, so he’s now Kahili’s son via a one-night-stand with Soliera, not Dulse! His “real name” has been changed to Thörun (from the Icelandic word for algae) from Söl (meaning dulse), to reflect this.

Can you tell us more about Elio, Selene, and their children and relationship with their partners?

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This ask has been sitting here a while and their families have gone through some pretty big changes since then, but I think I’m now in a comfortable place with the Alola protags to answer this!

Selene & Elio spent most of their childhoods living a very unstable and transitory lifestyle with their single father, Orion. He lost most of his memories when the twins were toddlers, but due to a distrust of authority he never sought help for this, simply doing his best to raise his children on his own and provide for them. When Elio & Selene were around 7 or 8, they moved to Vermillion, Kanto where Orion befriended a woman named Clarissa, who often babysat the twins while Orion worked his various odd-jobs, and even eventually offered them a place to live with her. Only a few years after getting settled, however, Orion up and left with very minimal warning to his roommate and children, leaving Clarissa to take custody of Selene & Elio as they had no other relatives. With this backdrop, when one of Clarissa’s cousins announced they were selling their house in Alola, she took the opportunity to move there for the sake of a fresh start for the children. When they set out on their island trials, Selene & Elio are still coming to terms with the disappearance of their father as well as moving regions, a plotline I thought would work well in tandem with Gladion & Lillie’s stories! (Also they find out that Actually they and their father are Fallers and that’s the true cause of his amnesia, they were just too little to have noticed any lost memories. How things resolve on that end is still WiP!)

Selene and Elio trade off the Champion seat every year or so for a while, but by the next-gen era the title has gone to Acerola! She and Selene are married, and Selene now works full time as a photographer, both artistically and for documenting the variety of pokemon and other creatures that inhabit Alola (her specialty is spirit photography!) Elio is married to current Aether President Gladion, and is an Pokémon Ranger who works closely with the organization, helping to protect habitats and bringing in injured wild pokémon for care. More details on their families under the cut!

Selene has always had a fascination with the macabre and ghost stories, lending her otherwise cheerful and somewhat airheaded demeanor a sinister tinge (aka she will happily discuss the ghost standing right next to you with her usual smile). When she first got her Rotom Dex and discovered it had a camera, she became obsessed with documenting her Trial through photographs, and Acerola’s trial ignited a love of photographing ghosts and ghost-types. She loves the idea of being able to capture the intangible on film, both for artistic merit and scientific research. After the events of the game, Selene remains in Alola and is the one who works with Interpol to catch UBs, which is how she and Acerola grew closer and eventually form a romantic relationship! After their first child, Lirio, is born is when Selene decides to retire as a trainer to pursue her photography full time and when Acerola became the Champion (where she remains). The two go on to have a second child, Eugenia, a few years later. Lirio is a very serious boy who can sometimes be a bit of a stick in the mud, though he’s also a fiercely competitive trainer. Eugenia on the other hand is a very cheerful and somewhat ditzy girl who is known for losing track of time and wandering off (Lirio worries about her as much as he complains about her).

Elio did his best to keep his spirits up throughout his childhood, but in many ways felt that he had to do so in order for Selene to not grow despondent when times were tough as well. This carried over when they moved to Alola, Elio keeping a happy expression even when venting his frustrations or being a bit mean (or manipulative). This exacerbated his rivalry with Gladion, who resented him for being “fake”. Over the course of the game, however, the two realize they have more in common than it initially appeared, forming a close bond of friendship and rivalry. After the end of the game, the two of them decide to travel together to other regions and challenge more leagues, eventually forming a romantic relationship along the way. This is also when Elio learns about Pokémon Rangers! When they return to Alola, Elio and Selene compete for the Champion seat together for a while, trading it off every so often, but once they both decide Acerola is the better fit, he revisits the idea of being a Ranger, something he prefers to working directly for Aether as he doesn’t like dealing with people, so it’s something he can do on his own terms! He and Gladion have two children – Primrose, who is a timid coordinator, and Enzian, an energetic and adventurous boy fond of playing pranks.

AntumbraShipping (Elio/Acerola) for the main ship meme plz?

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This is from an old ask meme that’s no longer open!

How they first met:
They first met while Elio was taking his Island Challenge. Acerola was, of course, a Trial Captain, but they actually first met in the Malie Library. The two had an animated discussion about Alolan history while Lillie did some research.   

Where their first date was:
They start dating a few years after the end of the game’s plot, while in their mid-teens. They had been spending a lot of time together as friends, exploring different parts of Alola, looking for ghosts, playing with the kids at the Aether House, and any number of other fun activities. Over time, they both grew to have feelings for each other and Elio blurted out a confession one evening when they were relaxing by the sea. Acerola happily confessed that she returned his feelings and things didn’t change too much after that, though they decided that they ought to have a proper first date and tried to arrange a fancy lunch that definitely went sideways. They had fun though, and it set the tone for their relationship to come – sometimes not going as planned, but always met with a smile and enthusiasm.

When they had their first kiss:
They had their first kiss on the beach when they confessed to each other! Acerola leant in to smooch Elio as a way of showing she returned his feelings, but they ended up clacking their teeth together. Luckily, they had plenty of time later to practice getting good at kissing.

Who cooks:
They tend to alternate. Acerola has some practice with helping make meals for the other children at the Aether House, so she tends to make meals that their children like, while Elio tends to get a bit more experimental with flavors that he and his wife might enjoy, but perhaps might be a bit much for the kids when they’re younger. He will complain about them not liking his cooking though, saying that Acerola’s kid-friendly meals will make them picky eaters. It ends up becoming a bit of a routine in the house that if the kids can eat a certain amount of Elio’s “New Recipes”, they’ll get some satisfying comfort food from their mama the next night.

Who proposed:
They didn’t have a traditional proposal, deciding together to get married after Lirio is born, but Acerola wanted to shock Nanu, so they invited him over for dinner and Elio made a huge show of proposing to Acerola in front of him. Nanu wasn’t terribly surprised but did his best to react in his own special Nanu way.  

The dominant one:
They battle for dominance. It’s all very playful, but things are rarely quiet and mundane for them.

Their favorite pastime together:
They love trying to find new places or things they’ve never seen before. They’ll spend the day researching ancient Alolan sites or rare pokémon in the library, then set out the next day to try and find it. Elio always brings his camera with him to get pictures of what they find, and the two are working on making their own book documenting the sights and history of Alola together. 

Who kissed who first:
Acerola kissed Elio! 

Who is the flirt:
They’ll flirt with each other for fun in a teasing way, but Acerola tends to be more aggressive about it. She likes coming up with puns and one-liners the most and it’s become somewhat of a competition between the two of them. Flirting contests. 

Who is the romantic:
Elio tends to be the one who will come up with spur-of-the-moment romantic gestures, usually catching Acerola by surprise. She’ll always be very bashful about it, “Awww you shouldn’t have~!”, but she loves it to bits. Knowing how much he cares about her.

Who wakes up first:
True to his name, Elio rises with the sun, but Acerola is also a fairly early riser, not wanting to miss any part of the day (and used to having to wake up the kids at the Aether House or her Uncle Nanu when they try to sleep in.) 

Who comforts who the most:
While Acerola tries not to dwell on the past too much, she does still miss her father terribly, and Elio does his best to comfort her on days when the pain is especially sharp. She does her best to stay cheerful, but Acerola is comforted by the knowledge that she can show a sadder side around Elio and will open up to him about most anything.

The cuddler:
Both of them! They’re both very physically affectionate and are practically draped over each other all the time. They love just being near each other and cuddling is a favorite pastime.

The big spoon:
Usually Elio!