Name: Art Ataris
Age: 20
Gender: Female
Hometown: Vermilion City
Theme song: Red Paper Lanterns
Appearance: Art is 166 cm tall and is thin and flat as a plank. Her hair is a brown, chocolatey color and very short for a girl. From behind, you could mistake her for a boy. She keeps her messy hair this short because it's practical. Her face is pointy, at least according to herself, with a thin, small nose and brown eyes, with her pale skin sporting numerous freckles which become more prominent during the brighter months. Make up is really not her thing to bother with. The only jewelry she carries is a golden medallion, in a black leather string around her neck. It's the only thing she owns that belonged to her mother.
She usually wears big shirts with sleeves that seem to be just a little bit long, often in pastel colors. Beneath, she wears slim jeans in bright or black denim, and on her journey she sport black laced boots on her feet. She carries her belongings in a brown canvas bag with a strap across her chest and one shoulder. Her father forced her to wear a pokéball belt, but she is able to hide it well under her long shirts.
Interests and goals:Art & Music
True to her name, Art grew to have quite the eye and ear for design and sounds and might stop anywhere at any time to appreciate a beautiful or dramatic scene or song. She mostly prefers art without people in it, and music without vocals.
Filling the pokédex
Even though she isn't exactly overjoyed about this journey, she has decided to try and see every pokémon there is with her own eyes, record the event in her pokédex, and if possible also capture the pokémon. As many as possible.
Internet
This is where she has her only true friends. Yet. She will try to stay in touch with her online bffs for as long as her smartphone can hold its charge when she's out and about. She is on several fandom forums but isn't crazily into any of them, and she also has tumblr and youtube and a few other such things where she wouldn't necessarily have to put up her own real face or name somewhere.
Family:Vermilion is a pleasant city near the sea, and arguably a good place to grow up in. But Art was always a bit different, bullied already in kindergarten because she didn't have a mother. She grew up to become secluded and odd in the eyes of others. Her father was a teacher at the local junior high school and did the best he could bringing her up on his own. Frank Ataris was a kind and joyful man, but he could be very stern whenever he was talking seriously with his daughter. The only thing she had learned from him about her real mother was that she left shortly after Art's birth and didn't come back. He never wanted to talk about her. When Art finished high school and thought about going to a college somewhere to study art or language, Frank stopped her and forced her to go on a pokémon journey around Kanto or be estranged. It was harsh, but it was his last resort to try and get her to become one with the physical world instead of the internet and the fantasy worlds she painted up with her art and music.
Strengths:Emphatic sixth sense
Not even her father believes that this is real, and sometimes she wonders too. But sometimes she thinks that she has a kind of sixth sense that lets her feel the emotions and emotional state of a person or pokémon by touch or by meeting their gaze directly with her own. Is it a real thing, maybe connected to the mysterious power called Aura? Or is she just imagining it?
Singing
She doesn't sing in public unless forced, but her voice is beautiful and crisp and she can reach very high notes effortlessly, despite her normal tone when talking being sort of dark. She sings absentmindedly in the shower or when she knows she is alone.
Analytic mind & inner voice
Without much effort, her brain scans and analyzes a situation thoroughly before Art decides to take action in pretty much any scenario. This can also make her a skeptic compared to more impulsive people, and has her paying more attention to security risks than some. This is connected to the voice that she hears inside her head sometimes when she is stressed, scared or very tired. While it scares her (more on that in the weakness section), it can also help her focus and shape up when she most needs it, as the voice in itself is usually not of a menacing personality.
Weaknesses: Easily annoyed
She often complains about people being dumb or irritating and if someone acts in a way she dislikes, she will very easily get angry at them. It takes her quite a while to fully accept and respect another person.
Physically frail
She is a very thin person and has never actively built muscles or developed a decent stamina. Traveling will be tolling for her and if she faces a physical situation requiring strength or above average dexterity, she will need to rely on her pokémon or traveling companions.
Agateophobia & inner voice
Agateophobia is the "fear of going insane". Whenever Art has been around crowds or people for too long, or when she is put into a stressful situation or go through a shocking event, she might start hearing a voice speak to her. A voice that no one else can hear. She sometimes ignores it and sometimes talks back, but she is afraid of it and angry at it and sometimes have nightmares about going insane. She has never told anyone about the voice, out of fear that they would instantly label her as insane, but her father has suspected things.
Starter pokémon: Smeargle (shiny), male
Thunderpunch - Firepunch - Icepunch - Doubleteam - Mimic - Swift
Smeargle was given to Art by her father, who bought him rather expensively from a pokémon collector. It was a bait to convince Art to go on the journey, even if she had never really expressed any wish to own a pokémon of her own.
