4. What is their relationship with their parents? What’s a good and bad memory with them? Did they know both parents?

Carmen was old enough when her birth parents died to have some memories of them, but the memories are bittersweet. Her parents were pokémon researchers who were killed by wild pokémon in the field, so a lot of her memories of them are of them taking her out on trips to see wild pokémon. She treasures the memory of spending time with them, but the memories also remind her of how they died.
As for Whitney and Ethan, Carmen has a great relationship with them – especially with Ethan. Due to the nature of her parents’ death, Carmen was initially very frightened of pokémon, but Ethan helped her slowly grow accustomed to them by letting her stay with him while he worked at the Daycare. Over time, Carmen grew attached to all the pokémon that stayed there, eventually growing to love them. She now wants to be a researcher like her parents and work to find ways to help people coexist better with pokémon so that less people will get hurt like them. She still loves to help out at the Daycare, essentially working their part time while she goes to school to study environmental science and biology.
While she is closer with Ethan, Carmen also loves to spend time with Whitney. Whitney was the one who gave Carmen her starter pokémon, Edna the teddiursa and helped her decide whether or not she wanted to be a trainer. After she got more used to being around pokémon, Carmen loved to spend time at the Goldenrod Gym with Whitney, especially watching the battles. Whitney and Carmen also love to just hang out together, like having a ‘girls night’ where they watch a movie, paint each other’s nails, do face masks, and just chat about what’s going on in their lives. In general, when Carmen has a question related to raising pokémon, she asks Ethan, but if it’s a question about being a trainer or general life problems, she’ll ask Whitney.

Carmen had a small but tight-knit group of friends as a child that she still keeps in touch with. In particular, she’s very close with Rosemary (one of Cress and Jasmine’s triplets) and Luna (Bugsy and Aaron’s daughter). These three formed a very close friend group as children. There was some drama when Luna suddenly decided to move to Kanto, but the three still keep in touch with messaging and video chats, and Luna visits home fairly frequently. With Luna living further away, Carmen mainly hangs out with Rosemary now, but she’s also tentatively befriended Sage, since she admires him for his relation to two generations of Professor Oak’s, but right now it’s more of a fangirl-type deal than an actual friendship.

18. What’s their favourite genre of: books, music, tv shows, films, video games and anything else?

Carmen’s favorite genres are nonfiction – especially nature documentaries and books, and mystery. She loves watching nature documentaries in particular and all the ones she’s seen has inspired her to travel the world one day. She loves mystery novels since she likes to solve problems, being a very logical sort of person. She always tries to figure out the solution to the mystery before she finishes reading, doing the same thing with mystery movies as well. In fact, she has a bit of a bad habit of making predictions while watching movies and, since she tends to be good at solving puzzles, often gets them right, much to the annoyance of the people watching with her. As for music, she likes a wide range of genres depending on what she’s doing. For studying, she always listens to classical, for working out, she loves upbeat modern pop music, and for just hanging out, she prefers indie music – especially if it has acoustic guitar in it. She tried learning how to play when she was younger but it never stuck, so now she settles to listening to the instrument. Carmen doesn’t really play video games, but she does have a few puzzle games on her phone she enjoys when she has spare time or is waiting for something. Rosemary keeps trying to get her to play games like Ace Attorney though, since she’s convinced Carmen would love mystery-solving games like that.

Though it’s been about 10 years since her parents died, Carmen still has moments where she’s hit by grief. Often, she’ll find herself reading something that she thinks her father would have liked, or hear a song her mother would have liked and the realization she can’t share it with them just hits her all at once. When she’s at home, she’ll tend to shut herself in her room when she’s feeling upset and cry to herself, usually putting on music or a tv show to try and distract herself. Ethan and Whitney always try to cheer her up while also giving her space – bringing her herbal tea or a hot meal or just letting her know that they’re there if she wants to talk. Carmen does sometimes just vent all her sadness with her adoptive parents as well, being hugged and just being able to say all the things bothering her. When she’s not at home, Carmen will usually call her parents or one of her friends, just to have someone there. These moments are less frequent as time passes, but she still gets sad occasionally, so knowing that her friends and family are there for her makes all the difference.

Carmen likes clothes with fun patterns on them that are also practical and comfortable for travelling. She usually wears patterned cardigans over plain t-shirts with jeans and comfortable sneakers or boots. When it comes to buying clothes, she likes to shop with Whitney, and they go to a variety of stores, from modern fashion to second hand vintage shops. Carmen likes to look both cute and professional with her wardrobe. She tends to wear matching pajama sets to bed – something that Rosemary teases her endlessly about, but Carmen is steadfast in her opinion that matching jammies are adorable. As for hair and makeup, Carmen likes to wear her hair loose with a headband keeping it back, but will put it up into a ponytail if it gets in the way. She wears a bit of makeup, foundation, mascara, and lipgloss mainly, since, while she likes wearing makeup, she hates taking forever to get ready in the morning.