Fankidtober Day 20: Poppy Full Name: Aspen Pendragon-RedwoodFamily: Iris Pendragon & Benga Redwood (Parents), Cypress Vallas (Older Foster Brother), Acacia, Jaz & Clem Pendragon-Redwood (Older Sisters), Laurel Pendragon-Redwood (Twin Brother), Hyacinth Pendragon & Ravi Vasuki-Pendragon (Grandparents, Deceased), Kino Redwood (Grandmother), Drayden Pendragon (Great-Grandfather), Alder Redwood … Continue reading
Nervous vulture boy. Thanks for the ask @sydchan!
Ah Cy. The eldest Benga/Iris fankid. He’s been an interesting one over the years in terms of development. Initially he was a version of the fankid who is currently Laurel (though without a twin to keep him grounded). Then I became inspired by @pkmn-thenextgeneration‘s character Harper who was raised by wild dragons and implemented my own take on the idea with him. Over time, I built up his story, thinking about how he came to be abandoned or left behind in the first place that he had to be raised by pokémon, and from these musings I came up with the idea of his parents being a forbidden human/supernatural being couple who eloped and lived a happy life travelling the world with their baby son, until tragedy struck. This idea stuck with me though. I wanted to develop these characters more and I had just struck them completely from the story with my current state of things. Cypress had no relationship or memories with them, so even trying to bring one or both back later on would prove rather challenging, simply because Cy had no desire to meet them and never longed to know them, simply happy with the families he already had.
So we come to the present. I have now grown attached enough to two OCs I made to be dead parents that I changed Cy’s entire backstory to give them more room to shine. (I also wanted to try and explore a different background for him, rather than simply have a very similar scenario to something another great blog has already come up with.) Thus, the current (very cliche but I know what I like) story is that Cypress is the result of a love affair between Khuzaimah, a young man dissatisfied with his life and wanting more, and Nasir, an old, arcane being who’s lived so long he’s forgotten most of his past, even his own name. They met by chance, but their romance blossomed quickly, Khuzaimah eventually convincing his lover to elope with him. They go to Almia first, which is where they soon have their only child, Cypress, named after the trees under which they first confessed their love (and used as a meeting spot many times afterwards). Khuzaimah had cast off his clan name after eloping, so the couple picked out a new surname, Vallas, since they loved to dance together. After Cypress’s birth and once he was old enough to travel, the couple decided to move on, wanting to see the world. Cypress grew up never staying put in one place for long, so he developed an open and playful personality, knowing that he had to make friends fast since he’d be moving on soon enough. Despite this, he loved his little family and their lifestyle, always being able to see new places and meet new people.
When they are staying in Opelucid, Unova however, around when Cypress is 10-11 years old, things go terribly wrong. One day, when Cypress comes home from playing, his parents are gone. They had said that they would be back from shopping when he came home, but they still hadn’t returned even after Cy waited hours for them. Scared and unsure of what to do, Cypress recalls his parents telling him to go to the local pokémon center if anything ever happened, as it made for an easy meeting point. When he arrives and tells the Nurse Joy there his story, she lets him stay the night there. In the morning, he’s escorted home by a Jenny, but their temporary house is still abandoned. At this point, a missing persons case is sent out, and the authorities now have to find a place for Cypress to stay until his parents can be found, the Center not being the best place for a child to stay for what could be days on end. Enter Benga. He had met Khuzaimah a few times in the past, the two being friendly, so he offered to take Cypress in for the time being. Iris is a bit stressed at the idea of having another child to look after when they’ve already got Acacia and baby twins on top of her work as Champion, but she would never turn out a child in need of shelter, who is missing his parents and needs love and comfort. So, Cypress stays with the Pendragon-Redwood family for days… then weeks…. then months… then finally a year has passed and there is still no trace of his parents. At this point, with Cy’s permission, Iris and Benga decide to take full custody of him as his foster parents and, as the years go by with no updates, they eventually adopt him when he’s around 15 years old.
There’s a lot more to Cy’s story, how he investigates his parents’ disappearance as an adult and finds out just how much they were hiding from him… his involvement in the main plot… and much more, but this post is long enough as it is! I’m very excited about all the new developments this story has been going through behind the scenes and wanted to share a little bit.
How they first met: They first met shortly after Alder chose Iris to be his successor as Champion and began training her for the role. Benga had stopped by to visit his grandfather and would constantly critique everything Iris did, which really got on her nerves, so she challenged him to a pokémon battle, thinking he was all bark and no bite, but was impressed when their battle ended in a draw. Their relationship started moving in a more positive ‘friendly rivals’ direction after that.
Where their first date was: After an afternoon of training in Opelucid, Iris invites Benga to one of her favorite restaurants she always visited growing up for dinner. She doesn’t explicitly say it’s a date, but the implication is there. After they’re finished eating she invites him back to her house with a wink, saying her aunt and uncle and cousins are out of town so they’d have the place to themselves.
When they had their first kiss: They had their first kiss when they spent the night together at Iris’ house after their first date. Iris kisses Benga to set the mood once they’re settled in her room and they continue from there.
Who cooks: Iris is a decent cook, but Benga’s definitely the better of the two. He likes having fun putting his own twist on recipes and coming up with new ones and he has a good sense of taste so they usually turn out well. He also ends up being the one at home more, especially as their family grows, so he’s usually cooking either way.
Who proposed: Iris.
The dominant one: They are both equally dominant which can sometimes lead to issues since both are so stubborn, but they are usually able to compromise for each other. Eventually. In the bedroom it’s the same, but in that case rather than starting arguments, it just leads to a lot of passion.
Their favorite pastime together: They sometimes have trouble coordinating their schedules, especially since Iris is so busy as the Champion, so when they do have time together, they usually stay closer to home since it just makes things easier. Hiking is a favorite pastime since both of them love the outdoors and Iris especially loves a chance to get away from all her responsibilities and just enjoy nature.
Who kissed who first: Iris kissed Benga.
Who is the flirt: Benga flirts more often and can be a bit crasser in his flirtation methods (sometimes he’ll jokingly smack Iris on the butt, which she then returns with more force and a smirk), but Iris definitely has her moments.
Who is the romantic: Neither are super romantic, but it’s more that they just have their own way of showing each other affection (that is mostly teasing and might seem aggressive to outsiders).
Who wakes up first: Benga is a fairly early riser and enjoys watching the sunrise while Iris prefers to sleep in a little when she has the chance.
Who comforts who the most: Iris is usually more stressed out from work, so Benga ends up comforting her more when she’s had a particularly trying day. Benga himself tends to be more optimistic, but even he has his bad days, when Iris is always sure to make sure he’s comforted as well.
The cuddler: They both are fairly cuddly, but Iris is definitely more of a cuddler than Benga.
The big spoon: Benga, mainly just since he’s taller.
As a bit of a follow-up to my previous post about Iris and Benga’s family, I’ll go into a bit more detail here about all their kids and the family dynamic. Warning – this gets really long.
For starters, Iris and Benga certainly didn’t plan on having six kids. When they first discussed starting a family, they decided that two was a good number. Both of them are fairly busy people, Iris especially since she’s the Champion. Benga is also somewhat often away from home due to his work as a Pokémon Ranger (the wildlife/parks kind, not the capture styler kind). Neither of them wanted to create the stressful situation of trying to balance a busy work life and a large family, since it wouldn’t be fair to the kids.
Acacia was born first and all in all, everything went well. The pregnancy was smooth and there were few complications in the whole process. She was quite the boisterous baby, which was just a hint of how wild she’d be as she grew up, but between the two of them, her parents were able to lead her through all her milestones, from first steps to first day of preschool. With everything going so well with Acacia, Iris and Benga decided to try for their second, and in theory final, kid. Acacia was just about to turn four when Iris discovered she was pregnant and the whole family was elated. What was unexpected, however, was when they later found out that Iris was going to be having twins. She and Benga were nervous about having three kids, but they both knew they could make it work and promised each other that, when it came down to it, family was more important that work. Acacia went around telling all her preschool classmates that she was going to be a ‘double big sister’, while Iris spent large amounts of time trying to come up with matching names and Benga got very emotional about matching baby outfits.
When Iris was about seven and a half months pregnant, the second unexpected addition to the family occurred. Benga was on a longer assignment to a more secluded area of a national park in northern Unova, when he returned to his camp one morning to find a wild-looking kid and a young deino doing their very best to bite their way through the wrapper of some of his granola bars. Both parties were very surprised, to say the least. Luckily, being dragonblood himself, Benga can naturally understand dragontongue and was able to communicate with the two (or at least understand them, being unable to actually speak dragontongue himself). After some back and forth, and with some help from his haxorous as a translator, Benga was able to figure out the the boy had been adopted and raised by the deino’s parents after being abandoned. He was able to convince the two youngsters to take him to their parents, which then led to a very long conversation that ended with Benga agreeing to take the boy and his dragon sister to be raised among humans, which his parents agreed was what was best for him. By the time the trio made it back to the nearest town, the boy and dragon had both grown quite attached to Benga and protested quite loudly when the authorities tried to separate them in any way. Benga had to admit he’d grown fond of the two kids as well, and agreed to look after them ‘temporarily’. This was how Iris, nearing the end of her pregnancy, tired and stressed from both that and the demanding job of being Champion, not to mention looking after her excitable daughter, went to greet her husband returned from a weekend away for work to find he had brought back a feral child and a wild dragon with him. Needless to say, she was not impressed.
While things definitely got off to a rocky start, Iris, and especially Acacia and her axew companion, warmed up quickly to the latest additions to the family. Iris and Benga decided to name the boy Cypress, as it was a male name they had wanted for a child, but since Acacia and Iris’ upcoming twins were girls, had never had the chance to use. It was originally intended to be a temporary name, but Cypress grew attached to it quickly and it’s stuck ever since. After his first checkup, the family pediatrician discovered that while Cypress was half dragonblood, he had significant heritage from an unknown supernatural source as well. Since in some areas, such unions are stigmatized, it brought up the theory that Cypress had been abandoned due to his heritage. Since Benga’s father had been an unknown being his mother, Kino, had had a one night stand with, and he grew up somewhat ostracized for not being fully human, Cypress’ plight resonated with him, and he was all the more determined to take care of the boy.
Cypress was a quick learner, in no small part thanks to his hatred of being left out, so he devoted as much effort as an eight year old could spare to learning how speak League Standard and Unovan, as well as read and write in those languages. Jasmine and Clementine were born not long after Cypress joined the family, and for a while after that things went as smoothly as they could in this boisterous household. Acacia started kindergarten, Cypress was well on his way to catching up enough to start school in a couple years, the twins were growing from babies into toddlers with all the joy and tears that come with, and Iris and Benga were settling into the routine of being working parents with a large family. Benga was taking more time off from work and eventually got a job in the Parks Service that let him be closer to Opelucid all the time. And then, seemingly out of the blue, Iris discovered that she was pregnant again.
It took her a while to realize the symptoms, and the discovery caught her and Benga completely off guard. They did consider terminating the pregnancy, but ultimately decided that they would go through with it, as they were both willing to handle the responsibility. Cypress and Acacia were both excited when they found out, since they both liked being older siblings to the twins. Jasmine and Clementine were a bit too young to understand, but the energy of their siblings got them excited for their new sibling as well. Things got a bit tense, however, when Iris found out she was, yet again, having twins. There was a point where she speculated that she must be cursed, or that her family must be cursed when she considered that her cousin/adoptive sister Phoebe had had triplets. On top of it all, the second set of twins were a rough pregnancy that led to a difficult delivery, culminating in Iris needing a c-section after a painfully long labor. Laurel and Poppy were finally born in the early morning of December 25, which led to plenty of comments on how they were special holiday gifts. Iris was not particularly amused.
Following the stress of the second set of twins, Iris and Benga both decided to have their ability to have children removed, just to be double sure there would be no more accidents in the future. Laurel and Poppy proved to be fairly well behaved babies, and thanks to the help of friends and family, Iris and Benga managed to raise them and the four other kids into productive adults and ambitious teens. Iris managed to continue her Champion work with the energy and passion she’s famous for, leading to her gaining even more of a reputation as someone not to mess with consider she makes time to be a mother as well as lead a region. Benga started working part-time and being a stay-at-home dad for the most part, which he loved and the kids appreciated. All in all, Iris and Benga certainly never planned on such a large family, but looking at the kids now and all their memories, the couple wouldn’t trade them for the world.
This is more a rough sketch of chibis than anything and none of these designs, especially outfits, are final, but I thought I’d post it here anyway! From left to right and in age order, Cypress, Acacia, Jasmine, Clementine, Laurel, and Poppy. Cypress is adopted and was initially raised by wild dragons for 7 years after being abandoned in the woods of northern Unova by his birth parents. He currently works for a wildlife conservation organization that specializes in rare pokémon, where his ability to fluently speak dragontongue is invaluable. Maia and Sieg both work for the same group. Acacia is a huge fan of rock music and currently works in Roxie’s gym, where she is also in a band with the Leader’s kids, Sunna and Lunen. She’s got a loud personality and loves wearing mismatched outfits in clashing colors. Jasmine and Clementine are identical twins who both love fashion. Jaz designs and sews outfits and Clem coordinates and models them. The two want to make it in the professional fashion world when they’re older. Jaz always wears cool colors and has a more preppy style, while Clem always wears warm colors and has a more cutesy style. Laurel and Poppy are the youngest and are fraternal twins. Despite their feminine names, they are both boys. They have completely opposite personalities, with Laurel being mischievous and outgoing, always telling some crazy new story, and Poppy being more withdrawn and shy, but also more impulsive and likely to pull crazy stunts out of nowhere. Despite this, they are very close and are rarely seen apart. They are too young to go on their journey, but they both want to be professional trainers, and maybe Gym Leaders or Elite Four one day. Between all of the siblings there’s a wide range of ages, with Cypress being 24 all the way down to the youngest twins being 14, but they all get along pretty well. They’re a rambunctious family (though after Cy and Acacia move out this tones down a bit) but all love each other a lot.
Pokémon Legends & Legacies 